The State of Canada`s Forests 2003-2004

Transcription

The State of Canada’s Forests
2003-2004
©Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada 2004
Cat. Fo1-6/2004E
ISBN 0-662-37602-1
The National Library of Canada has catalogued this publication as follows:
Main entry under title: State of Canada’s Forests …
Annual.
Description based on 1991–
Issued also in French under title: L’État des forêts au Canada.
Bibliographic address varies: 1993– , Canadian Forest Service.
Issued also on the Internet. Subtitle varies.
ISSN 1196-1589
1. Forests and forestry--Canada--Periodicals.
2. Forest policy--Canada--Periodicals.
I. Canada. Forestry Canada.
II.Canadian Forest Service.
SD13.S72
634.9’0871’05
Copies of this publication may be obtained free of charge from:
Natural Resources Canada
Canadian Forest Service
580 Booth Street
Ottawa ON K1A 0E4
Telephone: (613) 947-7341
Fax: (613) 947-7396
E-mail: [email protected]
Internet site: http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/cfs-scf/sof/
Photo Credits:
Pg. 1: Couvrette Studio, Ottawa
Pg. 2, 9, 10, 41, 45, 55, 58, 66, 79: Roberta Gal, Canadian Forest Service
Pg. 42, 44: Peter Bothwell, Canadian Forest Service
Pg. 46: Library and Archives Canada
Pg. 47: Gilles Delisle, Montreal
Pg: 48, 56: Murray Mitchell, Kamloops Daily News
Pg. 50, 52, 59, 60: Todd Korol, Calgary
Pg. 51, 75 (left): Brad Hawkes, Canadian Forest Service
Pg. 61: Sands Dragline Systems, Sakatchewan
Pg. 63, 68: David Andrews, Ottawa
Pg. 71: (photos 2-7) Sylvie Gauthier, Canadian Forest Service
Pg. 74, 75 (insects): Klaus Bolte, Canadian Forest Service
Pg. 77: Armand Séguin, Canadian Forest Service
Pg. 80, 83: Rick Lanoville, British Columbia
Pg. 82: Mark Primavera, Canadian Forest Service
Pg. 85: Darren Handschuh, Kelowna Daily Courier
Table of CONTENTS
Minister’s Message
1
Up Front
Overview
3
Year in Review
7
Mergers and Acquisitions
in the Forest Sector
20
Profiles Across the Nation
22
Forestry Statistics
29
Sparking Discussion on Forest Fires
40
Feature Articles
2003: The Year of the Inferno
42
The Nature of Forest Fires
44
Managing Forest Fires:
The Path to Sustainability
56
Special Articles
Forest Fires: Part of Nature’s Life Cycle 69
Things Are Heating Up with
Climate Change
72
Disturbances and Renewal
in the Forest
74
For the Record
76
Points of View
80
Glossary
90
Contacts
92
MINISTER’S Message
I
am pleased to present the 14th edition of The State of Canada’s
Forests. Canada is a recognized world leader in sustainable forest
management and in developing innovative and practical approaches
to addressing forest sector issues. Underlying this reputation is our
ability to generate and apply new knowledge. This edition of The
State of Canada’s Forests focuses on the latest research on forest fires—an area that many
Canadians may not necessarily associate with sustainable forest management.
In fact, outside the domain of forest experts, few people realize that fires are a natural and
important process in the forest ecosystem—especially given the many evocative images and the
level of media and public attention during last year’s fire season. This year’s report examines the
complex issues surrounding forest fires so that Canadians may clearly understand their causes
and effects, including the mitigation strategies and technologies that forest managers use.
The report also explores the human dimension of forest fires. The Points of View section
presents how governments, local authorities and residents dealt with the forest fire that swept
through Kelowna, British Columbia, last year.
In addition to the central theme of forest fires, the report presents the latest data and trends in
traditional forest products as well as non-timber forest products and forest conditions. You will also
find a synopsis of this year’s major activities and accomplishments across the country and a new
“For the Record” section that looks at the issues of genetically modified trees and clearcutting.
I am confident that Canadians will find the 2003–2004 edition of The State of Canada’s Forests
to be insightful and helpful in putting last year’s fire season into perspective. Natural Resources
Canada remains committed to conserving the integrity and diversity of our forests—and furthering
the Government of Canada’s commitment to building a sustainable economy for the 21st century, a
healthier environment and strong communities, while affirming Canada’s place in the world.
The Honourable R. John Efford
Minister of Natural Resources
The State of Canada’s Forests 2003-2004
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An OVERVIEW of Canada’s Forests
When Canadians think of their forests, it is often the recreation they can enjoy with their families
and scenic views of trees and fresh water that come to mind. But forests also preserve the terrestrial
ecological balance, support an $81.8-billion forest industry, and provide a myriad of wood products
used in every household in Canada. The challenge for governments is to balance these competing
interests with sustainable forest management approaches.
From an ecological standpoint, forests produce oxygen
and remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, help
to purify water and moderate climate, stabilize soil and
regulate water flow. Canada’s eight forest regions range
from towering coastal rainforests in British Columbia
to sparse and slow-growing forests at the Arctic tree
line. Collectively, the regions are habitat to some 180
tree species.
The composition and age class structure of Canada’s
forests are determined through cycles of disturbances
and renewal. Most of our forests grow in even-aged
stands that evolve as a result of
large-scale disturbances, such as
fire or insect outbreaks. Each year,
such outbreaks affect several million hectares of our forests.
Recently released statistics from
Canada’s Forest Inventory (CanFI
2001) tell us there are 401.9 million hectares of forest and other
wooded land in Canada. The other
wooded land makes up 23% of this
area and includes treed wetland
as well as land with slow-growing, scattered trees. Of the forest
and other wooded land, the Crown
owns 93%. The remainder is owned privately by some
425 000 land owners.
Eighty-seven percent is classified as stocked, or
supporting tree growth. Of this forest, about a third
has been assessed as young, another third as mature
or overmature, and a final third as uneven-aged or
unclassified. In terms of forest type, 66% of Canada’s
forests are softwoods, 12% are hardwoods, and 22%
are mixedwoods.
Canada's Forests
(million hectares)
Harvested forest
0.9
Land most likely
subject to forest
management
activities
144.6
Forest land
309.8
Forest and other
wooded land
401.9
Total land
909.4
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About Canada’s FOREST INVENTORY (CanFI) 2001 Statistics
A
s a recognized world leader in sustainable forest management, Canada must be able to
demonstrate to the world that its forest sector is economically viable, environmentally
responsible and socially accountable. To reach this goal, we must develop and implement a
complete, well-defined and accurate inventory of national forest land.
To meet the needs of forest managers and policy makers, the Canadian Forest Service compiles
Canada’s Forest Inventory (CanFI) by collecting data from provincial, territorial and other
forest management inventories. CanFI statistics were compiled in 1981, 1986, 1991 and 2001.
CanFI 2001 is a compilation of existing inventories. Since CanFI 2001 differs from the previous
inventory (CanFI 1991) in a number of ways, these data cannot be compared meaningfully.
Definitions and methodologies have been changed, the inventory coverage has been extended
to include all of Canada’s land area, and more land cover classes are used to reflect a focus on
the forest rather than on timber. Measurement methodology has also been changed, particularly
in northern Canada. In 1991, forest area north of 60º was determined using maps generated in
the early 1980s or before. CanFI 2001, on the other hand, uses a satellite interpretation, which
improves our ability to differentiate forest from non-forest areas. As a result, some areas that
were previously thought to be forest are, in fact, not forested. These differences mean that
comparisons between the 1991 and 2001 CanFI inventories would be misleading.
But even beyond these differences, we need to make comparisons over time to answer questions
about the sustainable development of Canada’s forests. Therefore, a new approach to national
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forest inventory is needed, one that continually updates the picture of our forests and allows
assessment of changes over time.
A new design, Canada’s National Forest Inventory, has been developed and is being implemented
in cooperation with the provinces and territories. This new design will replace the current CanFI
approach and allow comparisons over time. The first statistical report using the new inventory
is expected by 2006.
Forest and Other Wooded Land
compared to Forest Land
% of area
0 – <5 Forest and
Other Wooded Land
≥ 5 Forest and
Other Wooded Land
≥ 5 Forest Land
Canada’s Forest Inventory 2001
0
500 km
Canada’s FOREST FACTS for 2003-2004
• Canada is steward to about 10% OF THE WORLD’S FORESTS, 30% of the world’s boreal forests,
and 20% of the world’s fresh water.
• There are about 400 MILLION HECTARES OF FOREST AND OTHER WOODED LAND. The 92 million
hectares of other wooded land consists of treed wetland as well as slow-growing and scattered-treed land.
• Canada has 309.8 MILLION HECTARES OF FOREST LAND; of this, about 294.7 million hectares are
not reserved and therefore potentially available for commercial forest activities.
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• Of the 294.7 million hectares, 144.6 million are considered accessible and most likely to be
subject to FOREST MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIES.
• Of these 144.6 million, about 1 million hectares are HARVESTED annually.
• There were 8218 RECORDED FOREST FIRES in Canada in 2003 with approximately 1.6 million
hectares of forested land burned, a reduction of 1.2 million hectares from the previous year.
• Canada’s forests are the backbone of an $81.8-billion FOREST INDUSTRY.
• Forest products contributed almost $30 billion to Canada’s POSITIVE TRADE BALANCE, added
over $33 billion to the gross domestic product (GDP), and generated $3.3 billion in new
capital investments.
• Total value of forest product EXPORTS reached $39.6 billion.
• DIRECT EMPLOYMENT in the forest sector increased by approximately 14 900 person-years to
376 300 in 2003.
• About two-thirds of Canada’s estimated 140 000 SPECIES of plants, animals and microorganisms live in the forest.
• The FOREST-RELATED TOURISM industry is worth several billion dollars annually.
• There are 15 TERRITORIAL ECOZONES within Canada, containing forest types ranging from the
coastal rainforests to sparse and slow-growing forests at the Arctic tree line.
Forest Land Ownership
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Provincial
77%
Federal
16%
Private
7%
Canada's Forest Types
Softwood
66%
Hardwood
12%
Mixedwood
22%
YEAR IN REVIEW 2003-2004
A
s in the past few years, sustainable forest management was high on the agenda of Canada’s forest
sector in 2003-2004. Cooperation has become central, as governments at all levels work with
industry, educational institutions, First Nations and the general public to recognize and strengthen
environmental, economic and social values in our forests. More accurate forest information became
available through technological advances. Increased forest productivity and secondary value-added
production were balanced by heightened attention to sustainability, environmental quality and community values. Efforts to combat destructive invading insects continued. Several new national parks
were established, and new conservation programs were initiated. Finally, Canada has consolidated
its international leadership by hosting the XII World Forestry Congress and taking responsibility
for promoting forest values worldwide.
Combatting Pests
On February 19, 2004, the Ontario government
announced that it will fund a tree planting program for areas affected by Asian long-horned beetle
(Toronto and Vaughan) and emerald
ash borer (southwestern Ontario). Trees
will be planted to restore or re-green
areas where trees have been killed by
the beetles or cut as part of the control programs. The funding is intended
to leverage financial or in-kind support
from federal or municipal partners.
In 2003, British Columbia’s mountain
pine beetle epidemic increased in intensity and rate
of spread, with the result that 4.2 million hectares of
pine forests were infested—more than double the area
in 2002. The infestation is expected to have economic
implications for 30 communities over the next 15 to
20 years. Since 2001, allowable harvest levels in
beetle-affected areas have been increased by more
than 10 percent of the total provincial harvest to slow
the spread of beetles and accelerate the salvage of dead
timber. A search for new markets for beetle-damaged
wood has begun. According to an analysis of timber
supply impacts, the epidemic will create 500 million
cubic metres of dead timber, and despite increased
harvests approximately 200 million cubic
metres could remain unharvested.
Wildfires and Natural Disasters
Nova Scotia landowners can now access
images of their own forests, on the Nova
Scotia Department of Natural Resources
web site. After Hurricane Juan struck the
province in September 2003, visual information was gathered to help the province assess the
extent of forest damage. The web site offers a seamless
view of more than 680 300 hectares, and includes over
1000 photographs. This service is part of the salvage
assistance program for private landowners.
Ontario is implementing a new Forest Fire Management Strategy that takes a more balanced approach
to forest fires than the previous strategy. While it
continues to focus on protecting human life, property
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and natural resources from the threat of wildfire, the
new strategy also stresses the positive effects of fire as
a management tool in achieving ecological objectives.
In 2003, the Saskatchewan government released
a new Fire and Forest Insect and Disease Management
Policy Framework. Wise use of fire suppression
resources, reduction of wildfire danger, and management of forest insects and disease are the major
elements of the new policy framework.
The government of British Columbia initiated the
Firestorm 2003 Provincial Review in response to the
2003 summer wildfires. After consulting with more than 400 individuals and
organizations, the review team presented
their analysis and recommendations to
the B.C. Cabinet in February 2004. The
government is implementing all 42 recommendations in preparation for the next
fire season.
8
In November 2003, the British Columbia Ministry of Forests introduced the Wildfire Act,
which replaces or streamlines provisions contained
in the Forest Practices Code of B.C. Act, to ensure the
province’s communities can be protected from wildfires. The Wildfire Act clarifies the responsibilities of
all users of the forest, and reduces red tape to enable
local response to local conditions, especially in highrisk wildland/urban interface areas.
The Canadian Council of Forest Ministers
requested a high-level task force to pursue a national
approach to risk mitigation and hazard/emergency
management. In October 2003, Natural Resources
Canada initiated an analysis of the risks posed to
Canadians by wildland fire. Natural Resources Canada
has also engaged other federal departments and agencies in discussing opportunities to reduce the risk from
wildfires, in partnership with the provinces, territories
and municipalities. Discussion is currently under
way on the development of a strategic framework for a
national forest fire strategy.
Climate Change
On November 6, 2003, the Prime Minister signed a
climate change memorandum of understanding with
the Forest Products Association of Canada to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions. The MOU
marks the first agreement with industry
to implement the strategy set out in the
Climate Change Plan for Canada.
The agreement covers companies in
every region of Canada involved in the
production of pulp, newsprint, paperboard and other paper products.
The Forest 2020 Plantation Demonstration and Assessment Initiative
was launched on November 27, 2003. It will evaluate
and develop options that could attract investment, both
internationally and domestically, into future Canadian plantations, by taking advantage of the combined
benefits of both wood fibre and carbon values. The
initiative will also establish a series of plantation sites
to test and improve our biological information and
demonstrate the contribution from fast-growing trees
to help offset greenhouse gas emissions. This program
is part of the federal government’s Climate Change
Plan for Canada to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
and address climate change.
SOFTWOOD LUMBER DISPUTE
Canada has continued its efforts to find a resolution to the current softwood lumber dispute.
Since May 2002, the United States has been collecting combined countervailing and antidumping duties of 27.22 percent on imports of Canadian softwood lumber (shipments from
Atlantic Canada are subject only to the 8.43 percent anti-dumping duty).
Canada is pursuing a two-track strategy to resolve the dispute: (1) legal challenges of U.S. trade
actions before the World Trade Organization (WTO) and under the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA), and (2) negotiations towards a long-term, policy-based solution. On the
legal front, Canada has scored a number of important victories over the past year. NAFTA and
WTO panels have ruled that U.S. authorities erred in their calculations of duty rates and have
failed to show that imports of softwood lumber from Canada threaten to harm the U.S. domestic
industry. Should litigation continue, these cases will likely be concluded sometime in 2005.
Discussions over forest
management policies in
Canada’s provinces have
also progressed, but agreement has not yet been
reached regarding reforms
to such policies or measures that would replace
the current duties in the
event of a settlement.
Advisory Committees
In October 2003, the Quebec government set up the
Commission d’étude sur la gestion de la forêt publique
québécoise (Commission for the study of Quebec
public forest management). The Commission will study
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the Quebec forestry sector and the development of
Quebec’s public forests, and will submit its report to
the Quebec government in December 2004.
A Forest Science Board was established to advise the
Deputy Minister of the British Columbia Ministry of
XII WORLD FORESTRY CONGRESS
From September 21 to 28, 2003, Canada hosted the XII World Forestry Congress in Quebec City.
For the first time, the Congress included three parallel forums: for youth, Aboriginals and
private woodlot owners.
The Congress resulted in a Final Statement, adopted by acclamation by the 4000 Congress
participants, which reflected the theme of the event: Forests, Source of Life. The Statement
affirms the importance of the world’s forests for the achievement of important societal
objectives and sets out a vision for the future of the world’s forests.
Canada was invited to promote the Final Statement to relevant bodies on such strategies as
policy, institutional and governance frameworks; partnerships; research, education and capacity
building; management; and monitoring. As custodian of the Final Statement, Canada plans to
pursue the goals articulated in the Statement and engage the international community in doing
so as well.
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Forests on the Forest Science Program, as well as
to promote and improve the program. The board
represents industry, federal and provincial governments,
and the forest science community. Results of projects
undertaken through the Forest Science Program are
disseminated by FORREX—Forest Research Extension
Partnership—a unique non-profit organization for forest
science extension.
Forest Information
The Quebec Ministry of Natural Resources, Wildlife
and Parks completed its third inventory program in
November 2003. This third eco-forestry
inventory comprises ecological data as
well as measurement data that will allow
more precise evaluation of forest productivity. Quebec has developed a way
to reuse sample plots from the second
forestry inventory program but achieve
greater accuracy of compilations.
In December 2003, the Ontario and
British Columbia governments entered into a
partnership to improve the way information about
their lands and natural resources is managed. The
two provinces will share expertise and policies to
improve information management, collection and use
of geographic information, cataloguing and distribution
of geographic information, and collection of scientific
information related to sustainable land management.
The government of Saskatchewan invested in
improvements to existing forest inventories across
the provincial forest, in partnership with federal
and provincial agencies, forest companies, First
Nations and non-governmental organizations. Base
mapping, vegetation inventories, change detection,
field sampling programs and enhancement of data
management capabilities are included.
The government of the Northwest Territories began
a pilot project to assess the value of using 1:40 000
kinematic photography to both map forest vegetation
and upgrade base map accuracy. The pilot project
covers 5000 square kilometres in the Mackenzie
Valley near Jean Marie River. If successful, the results
will include full specifications for both mapping
products, substantial cost savings in mapping forest
vegetation, a fully auditable digital product, and
rebuilt base maps that achieve greater accuracy.
The government of the Northwest
Territories also initiated the Western
NWT Biophysical Study to provide
baseline biophysical data necessary
to assess, mitigate and monitor the
environmental impacts of proposed
developments in the western NWT.
The NWT government is investing
$1 million per year for four years
to address gaps in information on wildlife, wildlife
habitat and forests. Supported research includes
studies on boreal caribou, landscape and vegetation
classifications, and establishing monitoring plots
within the boreal forest.
Canada’s National Forest Inventory (NFI) is a
federal, provincial and territorial partnership aimed at
identifying, classifying and documenting all forested
land in Canada. Its main goal is to assess and monitor
the extent, state and sustainable development of
Canada’s forests in a timely and accurate manner. The
role of the federal government (Natural Resources
Canada) is to develop NFI’s standards, definitions,
procedures and infrastructure, and to conduct the
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analysis and reporting. The provinces and territories
are responsible for developing their inventory designs
and providing the data.
Throughout Canada, NFI projects continued during
2003-2004. New agreements were signed between
the federal government and Saskatchewan, Manitoba,
Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador,
and the Northwest Territories to further develop the
NFI in their jurisdictions. Fieldwork continued in
British Columbia, Ontario and Nova Scotia and was
completed in New Brunswick and Prince Edward
Island. Quebec continued with the development
and testing of procedures to analyze
its forest inventory to provide the NFI
attributes, while the Yukon and Nunavut
Territories rely on classified satellite
image products to provide data to NFI
specifications.
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In September 2003, Global Forest
Watch Canada released Canada’s
Large Intact Forest Landscapes, which
contains maps of Canada’s forests based on highresolution satellite imagery. According to the report,
40 percent of Canada’s wild forests have been
fragmented by industrial activity, while 60 percent—
mostly located in the northern boreal region—remain
intact. This report marks the beginning of a partnership agreement between Natural Resources
Canada, the Forest Products Association of
Canada, Global Forest Watch Canada and
the World Resources Institute to cooperate in
improving and making more accessible Canada’s
forest information.
Endangered Species
Four additional Nova Scotia species—a lichen, a
plant, a mammal and a reptile—will now be protected
by the province’s Endangered Species Act. Three of
those—the mainland moose, the boreal felt lichen
and the Eastern ribbon snake—are considered to be
forest-dependent. Two of the new species at risk are
classified as endangered, which means they could
become extinct in Nova Scotia if steps to reverse
the decline of these species are not taken. A total
of 24 species have now been placed under the Act’s
protection in Nova Scotia.
Sustainable Forest Management
In March 2004 the Newfoundland
and Labrador Department of Natural
Resources finalized a new five-year
update of its 20-year Provincial Sustainable Forestry Management Strategy. The
Strategy provides a clear direction and
philosophy for managing the province’s
forest ecosystems and ensures their management is
compatible with national and international sustainable forest management commitments.
The Island Sustainable Forest Partnership, launched
in Prince Edward Island in July 2003, is associated with the Nova Forest Alliance model forest. The
Partnership undertook a number of projects designed
to encourage more and better forest stewardship on
private lands, including developing a booklet on
“Voluntary Sustainable Management Practices for
PEI Forest Contractors,” demonstrating management
options for riparian zones, exploring the potential for a
Forest Learning Centre, and offering several Chainsaw
Safety and Maintenance courses.
On August 27, 2003, Prince Edward Island acquired
a new public forest in Kensington. This 14 -hectare
public forest will be accessible to all Islanders and
will serve as a model for community involvement in
forest use and management.
The first component of Nova Scotia’s Code of Forest
Practice, entitled A Framework for the Implementation
of Sustainable Forest Management, was made available for public review and comment in April 2003.
The Code of Forest Practice is to be a government
policy mandatory on Crown land and encouraged on
private forest lands. The framework describes the
general principles forming the basis for
sustainable forest management operations. Following the review and receipt
of comments, guidelines and technical
manuals will be developed to support
the principles.
The year 2003-2004 saw remarkable
discussion and public debate about
forest policy in New Brunswick. The
forest community was stirred by the 2002 Jaakko
Pöyry report, entitled New Brunswick Crown Forests:
Assessment of Stewardship and Management, which
advocated harvesting more wood from public forests.
The public forum, under an all-party Select Committee of
the legislature appointed in July 2003, held 13 public
hearings. Over 450 submissions, including written and
oral presentations, were made to the Select Committee
on Wood Supply. The legislative committee tabled its
report in summer 2004.
Other activities resulting from the Jaakko Pöyry report
included an economic analysis commissioned by the
Province of New Brunswick. The report, The New
Brunswick Forest Industry: The Potential Economic
Impact of Proposals to Increase the Wood Supply, was
released in December 2003. In addition, the Minister
of Natural Resources sought advice from his staff in
response to the Jaakko Pöyry report. Comprehensive
analysis and research was undertaken, and the resulting Review was released to the public.
In October 2003, the New Brunswick Department of
Natural Resources published Management of New
Brunswick’s Crown Forest, a guidebook that takes
readers through the management process of New
Brunswick Crown forests.
On December 12, 2003, Quebec
passed Bill 14 to improve the management of that province’s public forests.
This new bill postpones for a year the
date on which forestry management
plans come into effect and streamlines
forest management programs and activities. The changes also involve amendments to the Peace of the Braves, the
agreement signed in February 2002
between the Quebec government and the Grand Council of the Crees.
On January 12, 2004, the Saskatchewan government
announced that its forestry program’s Environmental
Management System (EMS) achieved ISO 14001
certification. EMS provides a framework for managing
the environmental impacts of activities associated with
the province’s forest ecosystem program. This is the
first province-wide government program in Canada to
achieve ISO 14001 certification.
In November 2003, the Alberta government decided
not to allocate the timber resource on an entire
forest management unit of close to 350 000 hectares
located northwest of the Chinchaga River. A process
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for developing a management strategy focusing on the
environmental features of the area is under way.
The Yukon government, First Nations and Renewable
Resource Councils have worked together for the last
year to produce, review and consult on a “Discussion
Paper” about Yukon forest policy principles. The final
discussion paper became available in June 2004; it will
help guide the future development of the Yukon’s first
forestry legislation.
Towards Sustainable Management of the Boreal Forest
was launched in September 2003. This book gives a
summary of peer-reviewed ecological,
economic and social research conducted
by the Sustainable Forest Management Network over the last seven years.
Defining Sustainable Forest Management
in Canada: Criteria and Indicators 2003
was released by the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers in September
2003. The document outlines the results
of the two-year review to develop more effective indicators for reporting on sustainable forest management
in Canada.
Environmental Assessment
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One of the most significant developments in forest
management in Ontario in the past year was the
Class Environmental Assessment Approval for Forest
Management released June 25, 2003, by Ontario’s
Minister of the Environment. The approval was based
on a comprehensive review of performance under the
previous Class Environmental Assessment and extensive public involvement. The approved Environmental
Assessment identifies acceptable forest management
practices in most Crown forests, covering an area
of more than 38.5 million hectares in central and
northern Ontario. The approval affects forest policy
on public involvement, Aboriginal Peoples, wildlife
habitat management, protection of water, forest harvesting, roads, forest renewal, reporting, and scientific
research and technology development.
The National Round Table on the Environment and
the Economy released Environment and Sustainable
Development Indicators for Canada in May 2003. Six
indicators are contained in the report:
freshwater quality, air quality, greenhouse gas emissions, forest cover, wetlands and human capital (educational
attainment of the population). These
indicators will track, at the national
level, the impacts of current economic
practices on the natural and human
assets that will be needed by future
generations of Canadians. The “forest
cover” indicator, to be reported annually, measures the
percentage of Canada’s total area covered by forests.
Conservation
Newfoundland and Labrador residents can now
report illegal activity through the province’s Department
of Natural Resources web site. Conservation officers are
thus provided with a valuable tool to apprehend those
engaged in illegal activities that threaten the province’s
forest and wildlife resources. This proactive approach
towards resource protection will help sustain the
province’s forests and wildlife for future generations.
More than 100 hectares of Blanding’s turtle habitat
are being protected. The Blanding’s turtle is listed
as endangered under the Nova Scotia Endangered
Species Act. Bowater Mersey Paper Company Limited
has established a new conservation area under its
Unique Areas Program. The newly protected area is
on Bowater lands adjacent to McGowan Lake.
In September 2003, the Quebec government gave
“exceptional forest ecosystem” status to 37 forests
covering a total area of 3700 hectares. These consist
of rare forests, old-growth forests, and shelter forests
for threatened or vulnerable species.
The Quebec network of forests protected
under this status now includes 63 units
covering 8000 hectares.
On June 12, 2003, the Ontario government and Ducks Unlimited Canada,
building on their many years of cooperative efforts, agreed to participate in a
new $2-million match-funding project to
protect wetlands in southern Ontario. They will invest
in a series of wetland interpretation and rehabilitation
projects over the next three years.
On August 13, 2003, the Ontario Ministry of Natural
Resources designated the Eramosa Karst in Hamilton
as a provincially significant earth science Area of
Natural and Scientific Interest. The designation
recognizes the importance of this geological formation
for natural heritage protection, appreciation, scientific
study and education.
A memorandum of understanding was signed on
March 19, 2004, between the Province of Manitoba
and the Government of Canada towards the establishment of a national park in Manitoba’s northern Interlake region. This initiative is part of the five-year
federal action plan to create 10 new national parks.
The Northwest Territories recently produced
Northwest Territories Biodiversity Action Plan: Major
Initiatives on Biodiversity, which lists current activities related to the territories’ biodiversity. The NWT
Biodiversity Action Plan’s objective is to review each
goal of the Canadian Biodiversity Strategy from the
territories’ perspective.
Also in the Northwest Territories, the
Protected Areas Strategy Secretariat
completed the Protected Areas Strategy 2004 -2009 Action Plan report in
October 2003. The action plan describes
the strategic enhancement needed over
the next five years to identify, review,
evaluate and establish interim protection
for a network of protected areas in the
Mackenzie Valley.
As part of a forestry conservation project, a partnership agreement to identify High Conservation Value
Forests (HCVFs) was signed on November 27, 2003,
between the World Wildlife Fund Canada and AbitibiConsolidated. HCVFs are forests of critical importance
because of their high environmental, socio-economic,
biodiversity or landscape values. Over the entire 18 million hectares of Abitibi-Consolidated licensed forests,
appropriate areas for HCVFs will be identified. The
project will assist in establishing a network of protected
areas in Quebec, Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador,
and British Columbia where native plant and animal
species can thrive.
15
Canadian FOREST MANAGEMENT CERTIFICATION Status
According to the June 6, 2004 Coalition certification status report, 143 million hectares of forest land across
the country, representing an annual allowable cut of approximately 124 million cubic metres, have been
certified, if all certifications to ISO, CSA, SFI and FSC are included. Otherwise, certifications to Sustainable
Forest Management (SFM) standards including CSA, SFI and FSC come to approximately 57.7 million hectares
of forest land, representing an annual allowable cut of almost 66 million cubic metres.
STANDARD USED
AREA CERTIFIED
(IN HECTARES)
ISO 14001
International Organization for Standardization
127.1 million
World-wide most recognized Environmental Management System Standard, helping organizations to better
manage the impact of their activities on the environment and to demonstrate sound environmental
management.
CSA
32.9 million
The Canadian Standards Association—Canada’s National Sustainable Forest Management Standards
Based on nationally and internationally recognized criteria for sustainable forest management. Addresses
environmental, social and economic issues and requires a rigorous public participation.
SFI
21.4 million
Sustainable Forestry Initiative Program—developed by the American Forestry & Paper Association
Includes environmental objectives and performance measures and integrates the growing and harvesting of
trees with the protection of wildlife, plants, and soil and water quality, along with other conservation goals.
FSC
Forest Stewardship Council
4.2 million
Supports environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial and economically viable management of the world’s
forests. Also supports the development of national and regional standards.
16
Source: Canadian Sustainable Forestry Certification Coalition (Internet site: www.sfms.com)
If a forest area has been certified to more than one of the three SFM standards (CSA, FSC and SFI), the area
is only counted once; hence the total of certifications for SFM standards may be less than the sum of the
individual totals for these standards.
The Conservation of Natural Heritage Program was
launched in May 2001 to encourage Canadians to
undertake stewardship of public and private land
and water. The report resulting from the first phase,
Securing Canada’s Natural Capital: A Vision for
Nature Conservation in the 21st Century (State of
the Debate report), was released in June 2003. The
second phase of the program focuses on conservation
in the boreal forest. A task force is studying three
boreal forest areas of Canada with significant biodiversity: the Muskwa-Kechika Management Areas
in northeastern British Columbia; the Alberta-Pacific
Forest Management Agreement Area along the Saskatchewan border west to Lesser Slave Lake; and the
Abitibi Region along the Quebec-Ontario border.
The Canadian Boreal Initiative (CBI), a national,
non-governmental organization, was established in
January 2003 to promote boreal conservation and sustainable development. On December 1, CBI released
the Boreal Forest Conservation Framework, which is
based on a shared vision to sustain the
ecological and cultural integrity of the
Canadian boreal forest region. The
framework was developed in concert
with leading conservation organizations,
resource companies and First Nations,
and endorsed by the Forest Products
Association of Canada. It proposes a
network of large interconnected protected areas covering approximately half
of Canada’s boreal region.
Forest Industry
Changes were made to two sets of Nova Scotia forestry regulations that oversee the commercial buying
and selling of wood, the Registration and Statistical
Returns Regulations and the Forest Sustainability
Regulations. These regulations, which establish the
registry of buyers of primary forest products, require
annual registration and submission of statistical
returns. The proposed changes should make the regulations easier to follow based on feedback from those
who use them. They include simplifying some of the
reporting requirements, clarifying who is an exporter
of wood and defining wood chips.
As of February 29, 2004, a new market-based timber
pricing system for the coastal forest sector in British
Columbia determines stumpage prices. The market
pricing system will help revitalize the industry by
ensuring competitive stumpage rates that better reflect
global markets and local harvesting costs.
Other Values of the Forest
On March 24, 2004, the Prince
Edward Island Public Forest Council released The Forest Is More Than
Just a Bunch of Trees. This new 22minute video highlights the Island’s
public forests as well as the many
values they offer.
New Brunswick has developed a
strategy for encouraging more valueadded activities involving natural
resources. To this end, a new maple sugary leasing
policy was developed in 2003 which encourages valueadded initiatives. Currently about 7000 hectares of
Crown land are used for tapping trees to make maple
syrup. The government has allocated an additional
2000 hectares to syrup producers to help them transform
the harvest into a saleable product.
In February 2004, the Quebec Ministry of Natural
Resources, Wildlife and Parks adopted a program
allocating public land under forestry management
for blueberry fields. This program will make forestry
development land accessible for inter-cropping blueberry fields with forested areas. The development of
17
60m-wide strips of blueberry fields alternated with
40m-wide forested strips managed intensively for wood
production is an innovative agroforestry concept and a
model of integrated management of forest resources.
In March 2004, the Quebec government confirmed its
financial contribution to the Centre intégré en pâtes et
papiers (integrated pulp and paper centre) project at the
Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières. Quebec joins
the Canadian government, educational institutions and
private-sector companies supporting this project. The
Centre will bring together key stakeholders in the pulp
and paper industry and will play a vital role in pulp and
paper education and research.
In 2003 Manitoba created a Sustainable
Forestry Unit. It will increase valueadded processing in the forest sector
(including timber and non-timber forest
products), and foster interaction between
primary and secondary industry. The
Unit will also encourage Aboriginal
forestry developments, including resource
co-management, business ownership and economic
development (particularly training and employment).
18
In March 2004, Manitoba announced its membership
to Forintek’s Value-Added and Wood Technology
Program. The province’s wood products manufacturers
now have access to industry specialists, technological
solutions, latest research and other services offered in
the program.
Innovation
On March 3, 2004, the New Brunswick Community
College in Miramichi announced it will acquire a
high-tech forest harvestor/processor and simulator to
modernize the delivery of its forest operator program.
Thanks partly to this acquisition, the college will have
one of the best forestry schools in the region and will
attract students across Atlantic Canada. At the Université de Moncton, a new Bachelor’s Program in Applied
Agroforestry was introduced. The program will train
professionals to integrate forestry into the agricultural
landscape, thus contributing to the sustainable development of farmland and forest land.
In 2003, the Canadian Forest Innovation Council,
an executive body composed of representatives from
industry and the federal and provincial/territorial
governments, was established. The
Council seeks to improve the innovative
capacity of the Canadian forest sector to
promote industry profitability, environmental quality and community stability.
It provides a forum for a national innovation agenda and promotes Canadian
forest sector innovation goals.
Aboriginal Activities
Saskatchewan Environment and seven First Nations
signed a joint memorandum of understanding in
July 2003. The MOU focuses on economic development opportunities in the First Nations’ traditional
lands in the Island Forests area and surrounding
fringe forests.
In October 2003, an area-based Term Supply Licence
(TSL) was issued to the Kitsaki-Zelensky Partnership,
an alliance between Kitsaki Management Limited Partnership, the business arm of the Lac La Ronge Indian
Band, and Zelensky Brothers Sawmill. The area of the
TSL was previously under licence to Weyerhaeuser
Saskatchewan, but was relinquished in 1999.
The Canadian Forestry Association has designated the town of Lac La Biche and Lakeland
County in Alberta as the Forest Capital of Canada for 2004. This designation allows the
region to celebrate its historic and forward-looking ties to the forest with a year-long
campaign of special events and promotion. Established in 1979, the Forest Capital of Canada
program focuses on the valuable role forests play in the socio-economic and environmental
health of Canadian communities.
The Tli Cho First Nations, the government of the
Northwest Territories and the Government of
Canada signed a land claims and self-government
agreement covering the land area of the Tli Cho
peoples (Dogrib First Nation). The agreement provides
for management and title over the lands they hold, and
participation in natural resource management over
other lands in the agreement area. It also provides for
the application of Tli Cho laws to forest management
and natural resource management. The Tli Cho
agreement represents a significant advance, being a
settlement of both land and self-government.
On January 30, 2004, the Yukon government and
the Kaska First Nations signed an Agreement in
Principle to establish a business relationship. A Forest
Authority will be assigned the Annual Allowable Cut
within the Kaska First Nations Traditional Territory, for
both public and First Nations lands. The Authority’s
mandate will be to develop a small, sustainable forest
economy in southeast Yukon.
On March 19, 2004, the Yukon government entered
into a partnership with the Champagne and Aishihik
First Nation to develop a plan that will address
forests affected by the spruce bark beetle in southwest
Yukon. The plan will have three primary focus areas:
fuel abatement (protection from wildfires), economic
opportunities and forest renewal.
On September 3, 2003, Nunavut, Northwest
Territories and Yukon signed a Northern Cooperation Accord. The three-year accord is intended to
strengthen the North of Canada’s voice on the national
stage in the areas of economy, devolution, Aboriginal
rights, environment and social policy.
An Inuit Impact and Benefit Agreement (IIBA) was
signed on August 23, 2003, between the Government
of Canada, the government of Nunavut and the Kivalliq
Inuit Association of Nunavut towards the establishment of a national park in Nunavut. The new
Ukkusiksalik National Park—Canada’s 41st national
park—is named after the soapstone found in the
area, and is home to a large number of caribou, polar
bear, musk oxen and other species. The park includes
2 050 000 hectares of eskers, mudflats, cliffs, rolling
tundra banks and unique coastal regions. Part of the
five-year federal action plan to create 10 new national
parks, the IIBA also protects Inuit rights in the park
and offers business and employment opportunities to
the local Inuit communities.
19
MERGERS and ACQUISITIONS in the Forest Sector
T
he pace of mergers and acquisitions increased in 2003 in the Canadian forest industry, following a slowdown of activity in 2002 and early 2003. One significant transaction was Canfor’s acquisition of Slocan,
a $630-million deal announced in November 2003 and finalized in March 2004. The new Canfor is now the
second largest lumber producer in North America (Weyerhaeuser is the largest). Other recent activity, such
as Riverside’s $100-million purchase of Lignum, has also signalled a renewed desire by Canadian firms to
grow through mergers and acquisitions.
Consolidation is seen by many in the Canadian forest
products industry as a way to improve international
competitiveness. Even the largest Canadian companies
are relatively small in international terms; some hold
a significant market share in select product lines such
as softwood lumber and newsprint, but lack overall
size in relation to more integrated international firms.
Consolidation provides an opportunity for companies to
rationalize operations, reducing production costs and
thus improving their cost competitiveness. Increased
size also makes it easier to attract capital for modernization and expansion, important in an industry where
capital expenditures have fallen well below depreciation in recent years. These considerations must be balanced against the disadvantages consolidation brings
to competition within the domestic market.
Regulatory issues can influence merger and acquisition
activity on both a provincial and a federal level.
20
• The Competition Act, administered by Industry
Canada’s Competition Bureau, is aimed at stopping
anti-competitive practices in the marketplace.
DATE
COMPANY MAKING
ACQUISITION
The act includes provisions for mergers involving
Canadian business entities. In the recent CanforSlocan merger, the Competition Bureau required
that Canfor divest its Fort St. James sawmill,
located near Prince George, British Columbia.
The requirement resulted from concerns that the
merger could lessen local competition in timber,
lumber and wood chip markets.
• The government of British Columbia, in its movement
towards a more market-based tenure system in B.C.,
has announced that more timber will be sold through
public auctions. These auctions will then be used to
set the rates for Crown timber paid by licensees and
other users, creating a more market-based pricing
system. Consequently, the B.C. government is paying
attention to mergers and acquisitions in the industry,
as these have the potential to reduce regional competition for wood fibre.
Regulatory issues notwithstanding, it appears likely
that Canadian firms will continue to look to mergers
and acquisitions as a way to rationalize production and
capitalize on larger economies of scale.
COMPANY/OPERATION SOLD
ACTION
FINANCES
DETAILS OF ACTION
Feb. ‘02
North West B.C. Timber
and Pulp Co.
Skeena Cellulose Inc.
Sale
$8 million
B.C.: 1 pulp mill;
4 sawmills; and log
chipping facilities
April ‘02
Tembec Inc. and SGF
Rexfor known as Temrex
Forest Products L.P.
Produits Forestiers St-Alphonse
Inc. and Nouvelle Sawmill
Joint
venture
$65.6 million
Que.: 2 sawmills
DATE
COMPANY MAKING
ACQUISITION
COMPANY/OPERATION SOLD
ACTION
FINANCES
DETAILS OF ACTION
April ‘02
Nexfor Inc.
International Paper
Sale
Undisclosed
U.S.: 3 oriented
strandboard mills
June ‘02
SFK Pulp Fund
Abitibi-Consolidated, St-Félicien
Sale
Undisclosed
Que.: 1 pulp mill
June ‘02
Cascades Inc.
American Tissue Inc.
Sale
US$33 million
U.S.: 1 tissue mill;
2 conversion sites;
and 1 paper machine
Oct. ‘02
West Fraser Timber Co.
Ltd.
Daishowa Canada Co. Ltd.
Sale
Undisclosed
B.C.: 1 pulp mill
Oct. ‘02
Tembec Inc.
Louisiana Pacific, Chetwynd
Sale
$50 million*
* environmental
clean-up, capital
expenditures and
work capital costs
B.C.: 1 pulp mill
Nov. ‘02
Taiga Forest Products
Ltd.
Louisiana Pacific, Rocklin, Calif.
Sale
Undisclosed
U.S.: 1 distribution
centre
Dec. ‘02
Columbia Forest Products, Portland, Ore.
Weyerhaeuser Company, Nipigon
Multiply
Sale
Undisclosed
Ont.: 1 hardwood
plywood mill
Dec. ‘02
Bois Omega Ltée, LacSupérieur, Qué.
Beaman Lumber, Winchester, N.H. Sale
Undisclosed
U.S.: 1 sawmill
April ‘03
Groupe Lebel, Rivièredu-Loup, Qué.
Poutrelles Internationales,
Pohenegamook
Sale
Undisclosed
Que.: 1 I-joist mill
April ‘03
Canfor Corp.
Daaquam Lumber Inc. and
Produits Forestiers Anticosti
Sale
$50 million
Que.: 1 lumber
manufacturing; and 1
harvesting operation
August ‘03
Tembec Inc.
Nexfor Inc., La Sarre and Senneterre
Sale
$49.2 million
Que.: 2 sawmills
Oct. ‘03
Tembec Inc.
Weyerhaeuser Company, Chapleau
Sale
$26 million
Ont.: 1 sawmill
Nov. ‘03
Canfor Corp.
Slocan Forest Products Ltd.
Merger
$630 million
B.C.: 10 sawmills;
1 plywood mill; 1
oriented strandboard
mill; 1 pulp mill; 1
lumber remanufacturing; and 1 laminated beam
Jan. ‘04
Tolko Industries
Weyerhaeuser Company,
Slave Lake
Sale
$56 million
Alta.: 1 oriented
strandboard mill
Feb. ‘04
Riverside Forest Products Ltd.
Lignum
Sale
$100 million
B.C.: 1 sawmill; and
20 wholesale
distributors of forest
products across
Canada and the U.S.
March ‘04
C&C Wood Products Ltd.
Weyerhaeuser Company,
Grande Cache
Sale
Undisclosed
Alta.: 1 sawmill
April ‘04
Ainsworth Lumber Co.
Voyageur Panel Limited, Barwick
Sale
US$193 million
Ont.: 1 oriented
strandboard mill
April ‘04
J.D. Irving Limited
Deniso Lebel, Kedgwick
Sale
Undisclosed
N.B.: 1 sawmill
May ‘04
LaPointe Partners
Doman Industries Ltd., Port Alice
Sale
Undisclosed
B.C.: 1 pulp mill
21
PROFILES
Across the Nation
CANADA
Population (2004)
31.8 million
Total area
998.5 million ha
Land area
909.4 million ha
Canada’s Forest Inventory 2001
% of Area Area (M of ha)
FOREST RESOURCE
Ownership
Provincial
77%
Federal
16%
Private
7%
Forest type
Softwood
66%
Hardwood
12%
Mixedwood
22%
Annual allowable cut (2001)a
236.8 million m3
Harvest (volume) Industrial roundwood (2002)b
189.2 million m3
Harvest (area) Industrial roundwood (2002)
972 303 ha
Status of harvested Crown land (2001)c
Stocked
(87%)
16.2 million ha
Understocked
(13%)
2.4 million ha
Forest regeneration on public land
16.2 million ha
Area defoliated by insects and beetle-killed trees (2002)d 18.2 million ha
Number of fires (2003)e
8 218
Area burned (2003)e
1.6 million ha
22
NON-TIMBER FOREST PRODUCTS
Production value
Maple products (2003)
Christmas trees (2001)
Wildlife pelts (minus seals) (2001)
31.3 million litres
4.1 million
1.0 million
MAJOR VALUE-ADDED WOOD PRODUCTS
Value of shipments (2001)
Doors and windows
Framing products
Prefabricated buildings
Mobile houses
Other products
$4.5 billion
$1.9 billion
$868.2 million
$643.1 million
$376.6 million
$702.8 million
0–<5
5–<20
20–<40
40–<60
60–<80
80–100
Total
1.2
7.9
21.6
40.9
86.2
243.7
401.5
Maple Tree
Forest and other
wooded land
401.9 million ha
National parks
26.5 million ha
Park attendance
16.0 million personvisits
FOREST INDUSTRY
Value of exports (2003)
Softwood lumber
Newsprint
Wood pulp
Waferboard
Other paper and paperboard
Converted paper
Other products
Major export markets (2003)
United States
European Union
Japan
China
South and Central America
Other countries
Balance of trade (2003)
Contribution to GDP (gross domestic product) (2003)
Value of shipments
Exported
Sold domestically
Number of establishments
Logging
Wood product manufacturing (2001)
Paper manufacturing (2001)
Direct employment (2003)
Wages and salaries
New investments (2003)
$39.6 billion
$8.5 billion
$5.6 billion
$6.8 billion
$2.8 billion
$6.5 billion
$1.0 billion
$8.4 billion
$39.6 billion
$31.0 billion
$2.7 billion
$2.2 billion
$1.0 billion
$0.6 billion
$2.2 billion
$29.7 billion
$33.7 billion
not available
not available
not available
not available
not available
3 740
850
376 300
not available
$3.3 billion
a, b, c, d, e
see page 38
BRITISH COLUMBIA
ALBERTA
Population (2004)
4.2 million
Total area
94.5 million ha
Land area
92.5 million ha
Forest and other
wooded land
64.1 million ha
Population (2004)
3.2 million
Total area
66.2 million ha
Land area
64.2 million ha
Forest and other
wooded land
36.4 million ha
Western Red Cedar
Lodgepole Pine
FOREST RESOURCE
FOREST RESOURCE
Ownership
Provincial
96%
Federal
1%
Private
3%
Forest type
Softwood
82%
Hardwood
5%
Mixedwood
13%
81.5 million m3
b
Harvest (volume) Industrial roundwood (2002)
73.6 million m3
189 277 ha
Stocked
(82%)
3.6 million ha
Understocked
(18%)
770 000 ha
2 447
Area burned (2003)e
266 412 ha
Ownership
Provincial
89%
Federal
8%
Private
3%
Forest type
Softwood
50%
Hardwood
32%
Mixedwood
18%
26.2 million m3
24.6 million m3
68 430 ha
Status of harvested Crown landc
Stocked
not available
Understocked
not available
1 191
Area burned (2003)e
55 482 ha
FOREST INDUSTRY
Softwood lumber
Newsprint
Wood pulp
Waferboard
Converted paper
Other products
United States
European Union
Japan
China
Other countries
Value of shipments
Logging
Logging
Wages and salaries
Logging
FOREST INDUSTRY
$12.6 billion
$5.3 billion
$0.6 billion
$2.8 billion
$0.6 billion
$1.2 billion
$16.2 million
$2.1 billion
$12.6 billion
$7.8 billion
$1.0 billion
$1.9 billion
$0.6 billion
$0.2 billion
$1.1 billion
$11.4 billion
not available
not available
$11.2 billion
$6.4 billion
not available
not available
900
85
91 600
not available
not available
$1.7 billion
$871.9 million
$0.6 billion
Softwood lumber
Newsprint
Wood pulp
Waferboard
Converted paper
Other products
United States
European Union
Japan
China
Other countries
Logging
Wood product manufacturing
Paper manufacturing
Logging
Wages and salaries
Logging
$2.8 billion
$580.4 million
$114.5 million
$1.2 billion
$571.1 million
$18.3 million
$20.8 million
$254.5 million
$2.8 billion
$1.9 billion
$163.1 million
$238.5 million
$148.3 million
$16.3 million
$257.7 million
$2.5 billion
not available
not available
$2.7 billion
$1.7 billion
not available
not available
286
35
25 300
not available
not available
$443.4 million
$206.1 million
$0.2 billion
23
SASKATCHEWAN
MANITOBA
Population (2004)
1.0 million
Total area
65.1 million ha
Land area
59.2 million ha
Forest and other
wooded land
24.3 million ha
Population (2004)
1.2 million
Total area
64.8 million ha
Land area
55.4 million ha
Forest and other
wooded land
36.3 million ha
White Birch
FOREST RESOURCE
FOREST RESOURCE
Ownership
Provincial
90%
Federal
4%
Private
6%
Forest type
Softwood
47%
Hardwood
16%
Mixedwood
37%
8.9 million m3
4.3 million m3
23 222 ha
Stocked
not available
Understocked
not available
Area defoliated by insects and beetle-killed trees (2002)d 669 591 ha
642
Area burned (2003)e
126 191 ha
Ownership
Provincial
95%
Federal
2%
Private
3%
Forest type
Softwood
74%
Hardwood
15%
Mixedwood
11%
9.6 million m3
2.0 million m3
15 042 ha
Stocked
(95%)
308 000 ha
Understocked
(5%)
15 000 ha
1 148
Area burned (2003)e
430 170 ha
FOREST INDUSTRY
24
White Spruce
Softwood lumber
Newsprint
Wood pulp
Waferboard
Converted paper
Other products
United States
European Union
China
Japan
Other countries
Value of shipments
Logging
Logging
Wages and salaries
Logging
FOREST INDUSTRY
$643.4 million
$84.3 million
$0.1 million
$284.4 million
$117.3 million
$112.6 million
$16.5 million
$28.2 million
$643.4 million
$456.0 million
$94.3 million
$22.5 million
$12.5 million
$11.6 million
$46.5 million
$543.0 million
not available
not available
$326.4 million
$496.2 million
not available
not available
59
9
6 198
not available
not available
$64.3 million
$76.2 million
not available
Softwood lumber
Newsprint
Wood pulp
Waferboard
Converted paper
Other products
United States
European Union
Japan
Other countries
Value of shipments
Logging
Logging
Wages and salaries
Logging
$640.0 million
$54.2 million
$140.6 million
$1.2 million
$128.1 million
$79.7 million
$28.7 million
$207.5 million
$640.0 million
$629.9 million
$1.2 million
$1.5 million
$2.6 million
$4.8 million
$263.7 million
not available
not available
$635.1 million
$590.1 million
not available
not available
76
30
8 900
not available
not available
$118.3 million
$104.5 million
not available
ONTARIO
QUEBEC
Population (2004)
12.3 million
Total area
107.6 million ha
Land area
91.8 million ha
Forest and other
wooded land
68.3 million ha
Population (2004)
7.5 million
Total area
154.2 million ha
Land area
136.5 million ha
Forest and other
wooded land
84.6 million ha
Eastern White Pine
Yellow Birch
FOREST RESOURCE
FOREST RESOURCE
Ownership
Provincial
91%
Federal
1%
Private
8%
Forest type
Softwood
58%
Hardwood
16%
Mixedwood
26%
293 288 ha
26.3 million m3
184 322 ha
Stocked
(88%)
4.3 million ha
Understocked
(12%)
597 000 ha
1 015
Area burned (2003)e
314 219 ha
Ownership
Provincial
89%
Private
11%
Forest type
Softwood
73%
Hardwood
11%
Mixedwood
16%
55.9 million m3
39.6 million m3
309 195 ha
Stocked
(97%)
5.9 million ha
Understocked
(3%)
159 000 ha
716
Area burned (2003)e
87 860 ha
FOREST INDUSTRY
Softwood lumber
Newsprint
Wood pulp
Waferboard
Converted paper
Other products
United States
European Union
China
Japan
Other countries
Logging
Paper manufacturing
Logging
Wages and salaries
Logging
FOREST INDUSTRY
$8.5 billion
$0.6 billion
$1.3 billion
$0.9 billion
$0.8 billion
$1.7 billion
$0.6 billion
$2.6 billion
$8.5 billion
$8.2 billion
$124.5 million
$64.9 million
$25.8 million
$7.7 million
$96.8 million
$2.8 billion
not available
not available
$6.0 billion
$12.0 billion
not available
not available
912
385
88 100
not available
not available
$1.0 billion
$1.8 billion
$0.6 billion
Softwood lumber
Newsprint
Wood pulp
Waferboard
Converted paper
Other products
United States
European Union
Japan
China
Other countries
Logging
Paper manufacturing
Logging
Wages and salaries
Logging
$10.7 billion
$1.2 billion
$2.6 billion
$0.9 billion
$0.4 billion
$2.5 billion
$0.3 billion
$2.8 billion
$10.7 billion
$9.2 billion
$797.0 million
$29.1 million
$157.8 million
$137.1 million
$360.6 million
$8.8 billion
not available
not available
$8.4 billion
$12.2 billion
not available
not available
1 129
251
118 300
not available
not available
$1.3 billion
$1.6 billion
$1.3 billion
25
NEW BRUNSWICK
NOVA SCOTIA
Population (2004)
750 096
Total area
7.3 million ha
Land area
7.1 million ha
Forest and other
wooded land
6.2 million ha
Population (2004)
936 892
Total area
5.5 million ha
Land area
5.3 million ha
Forest and other
wooded land
4.3 million ha
Balsam Fir
FOREST RESOURCE
FOREST RESOURCE
Ownership
Provincial
48%
Federal
2%
Private
50%
Forest type
Softwood
44%
Hardwood
25%
Mixedwood
31%
11.0 million m3
10.1 million m3
105 834 ha
Stocked
(95%)
638 000 ha
Understocked
(5%)
35 000 ha
Area defoliated by insects and beetle-killed trees (2002)dd
2 124 ha
228
Area burned (2003)e
237 ha
Ownership
Provincial
29%
Federal
3%
Private
68%
Forest type
Softwood
58%
Hardwood
13%
Mixedwood
29%
6.7 million m3
6.0 million m3
49 959 ha
Stocked
(97%)
203 000 ha
Understocked
(3%)
6 400 ha
Area defoliated by insects and beetle-killed trees (2002)d
17 520 ha
274
Area burned (2003)e
1 257 ha
FOREST INDUSTRY
26
Red Spruce
Softwood lumber
Newsprint
Wood pulp
Waferboard
Converted paper
Other products
United States
European Union
Japan
China
Other countries
Value of shipments
Logging
Logging
Wages and salaries
Logging
FOREST INDUSTRY
$2.3 billion
$431.5 million
$217.9 million
$523.2 million
$101.3 million
$653.3 million
$32.1 million
$324.0 million
$2.3 billion
$1.9 billion
$154.9 million
$41.2 million
$21.0 million
$6.5 million
$159.4 million
$2.0 billion
not available
not available
$1.4 billion
$2.2 billion
not available
not available
165
27
20 400
not available
not available
$217.3 million
$307.0 million
not available
Softwood lumber
Newsprint
Wood pulp
Waferboard
Converted paper
Other products
United States
European Union
Japan
China
Other countries
Value of shipments
Logging
Logging
Wages and salaries
Logging
$923.1 million
$163.5 million
$235.8 million
$191.0 million
$0.1 million
$244.4 million
$10.1 million
$78.1 million
$923.1 million
$670.2 million
$97.4 million
$8.2 million
$73.6 million
$4.1 million
$69.6 million
$873.4 million
not available
not available
$537.8 million
$1.0 billion
not available
not available
126
14
13 360
not available
not available
$88.4 million
$132.2 million
not available
PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND
NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR
Population (2004)
138 102
Total area
0.6 million ha
Land area
0.6 million ha
Forest and other
wooded land
0.3 million ha
Population (2004)
519 897
Total area
40.5 million ha
Land area
37.4 million ha
Forest and other
wooded land
20.1 million ha
Red Oak
Black Spruce
FOREST RESOURCE
FOREST RESOURCE
Ownership
Provincial
Federal
Private
Forest type
Softwood
Hardwood
Mixedwood
Stocked
(100%)
Area defoliated by insects and beetle-killed treesd
Area burned (2003)e
Ownership
Provincial*
99%
Private
1%
Forest type
Softwood
93%
Hardwood
1%
Mixedwood
6%
2.6 million m3
2.1 million m3
22 027 ha
Stocked
(81%)
360 000 ha
Understocked
(19%)
83 000 ha
191
Area burned (2003)e
36 533 ha
8%
1%
91%
24%
29%
47%
0.5 million m3
0.4 million m3
4 903 ha
54 800 ha
not available
14
12 ha
FOREST INDUSTRY
Softwood lumber
Converted paper
Other products
United States
European Union
Value of shipments
Logging
Logging
Wages and salaries
Logging
Paper manufacturing
New investments
FOREST INDUSTRY
$13.0 million
$11.7 million
$45 841
$32 497
$1.2 million
$13.0 million
$12.8 million
$0.2 million
$13.0 million
not available
not available
$46.2 million
not available
not available
not available
15
5
740
not available
not available
$8.0 million
not available
not available
Softwood lumber
Newsprint
Converted paper
Other products
United States
European Union
Other countries
Value of shipments
Logging
Paper manufacturing
Number of establishments (2001)
Logging
Paper manufacturing
Wages and salaries
Logging
Paper manufacturing
New investments
$553.1 million
$9.0 million
$537.4 million
$6.1 million
$0.4 million
$0.2 million
$553.1 million
$213.4 million
$187.3 million
$102.0 million
$50.4 million
$537.5 million
not available
not available
$106.6 million
not available
not available
not available
72
9
3 400
not available
not available
$19.5 million
not available
not available
*Timber and property rights for 69% of the Crown land on the island of Newfoundland
has been conveyed to pulp and paper companies through 99 year licences issued under
the 1905 Pulp and Paper Manufacturing Act and 1935 Bowater Act. Therefore, the
Province’s financial and legal system treats this licenced land as private porperty.
27
YUKON
NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
Population (2004)
31 408
Total area
48.2 million ha
Land area
47.4 million ha
Forest and other
wooded land
22.8 million ha
Population (2004)
42 321
Total area
134.6 million ha
Land area
118.3 million ha
Forest and other
wooded land
33.3 million ha
Subalpine Fir
FOREST RESOURCE
FOREST RESOURCE
Ownership
Federal
Forest type
Softwood
Hardwood
Mixedwood
Stocked
(45%)
Understocked
(55%)
Area burned (2003)e
Ownership
Federal
Forest type
Softwood
Mixedwood
Annual allowable cuta
Stocked
Understocked
Area burned (2003)e
100%
79%
2%
19%
267 thousand m3
7.0 thousand m3
42 ha
5 700 ha
7 000 ha
not available
77
49 037 ha
FOREST INDUSTRY
Softwood lumber
Other products
United States
$579 306
$46 292
$533 014
$579 306
$579 306
$581 288
Jack Pine
100%
53%
47%
not applicable
3.0 thousand m3
50 ha
not available
not available
not available
160
127 821 ha
FOREST INDUSTRY
Value of exports
Major export markets
Balance of trade
not available
not available
not available
NUNAVUT
28
Population (2004)
29 496
Total area
209.3 million ha
Land area
193.6 million ha
Forest and other
wooded land
0.9 million ha
FOREST RESOURCE
FOREST INDUSTRY
Ownership
Federal
Forest type
Softwood
Mixedwood
Converted paper
Other products
European Union
Japan
Other countries
100%
52%
48%
$36 756
$237
$36 519
$36 756
$28 370
$4 250
$3 962
$174
$37 877
Total all Products
Forest Products
Forestry STATISTICS
Trade Balance
Tra de Ba l a nc e
Canada’s trade balance (exports minus imports) was $45.7 billion in 2003. As they
do every year, forest products played a major role, contributing $29.7 billion. That
represents a drop of 9.6% from 2002; however, the decline in the trade balance
is mainly due to the increase in the Canadian dollar relative to the U.S. dollar.
Since the price of forest products sold on international markets is set in U.S.
currency, when that currency weakens in relation to Canadian currency, fewer
Canadian dollars are received for a sale that is expressed in U.S. dollars. In
2003 the value of sales in U.S. dollars remained much the same as in 2002, but
Total
because of the exchange rate the sales were equal to fewer Canadian dollars.
( BILLIO N $ )
70
Total
60
50
40
995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003
2003
Billion $
Forest Products
Trade balance
Forest products contribution
45.7
29.7
Annual change (%)
1 year
-4.2
-9.6
10 years
10.0
2.9
Newsprint
Exports of Forest Products
The vast majority of
Canada’s
forest product exports go to the United States.
Wood
Pulp
The exchange rate for Canadian dollars against U.S. dollars is therefore crucial
in determining the value of exports. Since exports are sold in U.S. dollars, the
higher the value ofSoftwood
the U.S.
dollar compared to the Canadian dollar, the greater
Lumber
will be the value of exports expressed in Canadian dollars. In 2003 the U.S.
dollar declined against the Canadian dollar, so the value of exports (expressed
in Canadian dollars) dropped. Canadian forest product exports amounted to
$39.6 billion in 2003, down from $43.2 billion for 2002. However, if the U.S.
dollar had remained as strong against the Canadian dollar as in 2002, these
exports would have been worth $44.4 billion, 12% higher than the actual figure.
Of the three main Canadian forest products exported—wood pulp, softwood
996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003
lumber and newsprint—wood pulp best resisted the general decline in the
value of exports. Unlike the other two products, wood pulp is mostly exported
to countries other than the United States, and wood pulp prices were rising on
international markets in 2003.
2003
Softwood lumber
Newsprint
Wood pulp
Other forest products
Total
Billion $
8.5
5.6
6.8
18.7
39.6
Annual change (%)
1 year
-18.5
-10.8
-2.9
-4.1
-8.3
10 years
-0.8
-0.7
3.9
10.7
4.0
Forest products
30
20
'94 '95 '96 '97 '98 '99 '00 '01 '02 '03
E x ports of Fo res t
Produc ts
(B ILLIO N $ )
50
Total
40
30
Other forest products
20
29
Softwood lumber
10
Wood pulp
Newsprint
'94 '95 '96 '97 '98 '99 '00 '01 '02 '03
Softwoo d L u mb e r
(M IL L ION C UB I C M ET R ES)
80
70
Production
60
50
Exports
40
30
20
Softwood Lumber
Canadian companies exporting softwood lumber to the United States have had to
pay anti-dumping and countervailing duties of 27.2% since May 2002. The total
cumulative value of those duties is now estimated to be $2 billion. Nevertheless,
Canadian sawmills continue to export to the United States, even slightly increasing their market share. Also, there is promising news for Canadian sawmills: a
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) panel of experts ruled in Canada’s
favour in April 2004. They judged that Canadian exports were not harming U.S.
producers, and that the imposition of duties was therefore illegal. The U.S. industry
is expected to appeal the NAFTA ruling; however, if the decision is upheld, not only
will the 27.2% tax be removed, but Canadian sawmills may be refunded the duties
paid so far. Canadian consumption of softwood lumber declined 6.6% in 2003,
owing to a drop in residential repair activities.
2003
Consumption
Production
Exports
Consumption
Million cubic metres
77.6
50.8
27.4
Annual change (%)
1 year
-1.5
1.7
-6.6
10 years
2.8
1.7
5.4
'94 '95 '96 '97 '98 '99 '00 '01 '02 '03
Wo od Pu l p
( M IL LION TON N E S )
30
Production
25
30
20
15
Consumption
Exports
10
'94 '95 '96 '97 '98 '99 '00 '01 '02 '03
Wood Pulp
Canada is the world’s second-largest producer of wood pulp. Although most of
Canada’s production remains in the country to manufacture paper, over 11 million
tonnes were sold on the international market in 2003, making Canada the
world’s largest exporter of wood pulp. The price of wood pulp on international
markets rose in 2003, partially offsetting a drop in the quantity exported; export
revenues were thus about the same as in 2002. While exports decreased by
600 000 tonnes, consumption of pulp to produce paper rose by 1 200 000 tonnes,
resulting in an increase in imports of 200 000 tonnes and a rise in production of
400 000 tonnes.
2003
Production
Exports
Consumption
Million tonnes
25.9
11.5
14.9
Annual change (%)
1 year
1.7
-5.0
8.9
10 years
1.3
2.1
0.8
Consumption
Exports
Production
Newsprint
Newsprint
Canada is the world’s leading producer of newsprint. Because seven of every eight
newsprint rolls produced in Canada are sold on international markets, it is also
the largest exporter; in fact, it exports more than all other countries combined.
Canadian newsprint consumption remained the same in 2003 as in the previous
year, reflecting a slowdown in newsprint consumption observed for at least a decade
in North America. Some newsprint machines, consequently, have been modified
by Canadian producers to make other types of paper which have higher rates of
consumption. These papers are better in quality and permit greater use of colour
and better photograph reproduction. They are often used for advertising inserts.
1998 1999 2000 2001 20022003
2003
Forestry Service
Production
Exports
Consumption Logging
Million tonnes
8.5
7.4
1.2
( M I L L I ON TON NES)
Production
8
Exports
6
4
Annual change (%)
1 year
0.4
-0.3
0.0
10 years
-0.7
-0.8
0.3
10
2
Consumption
'94 '95 '96 '97 '98 '99 '00 '01 '02 '03
Paper
Direct Employment
Direct Employment
Wood
Canada’s forest
industry gained 14 900 jobs from 2002 to 2003, for a total of
376 300 jobs, a record for the past ten years. The workforce grew in all subsectors:
wood industries showed the greatest increase, with 10 450 more jobs, followed
Total a gain of 3 100 jobs, then forestry services with 700 added jobs,
by logging with
and paper with 650 added jobs.
( T H O U SANDS)
400
350
Total
For the past ten years wood industries have continued to be the driving force for
the forest industry, with an exceptional average annual growth rate of 4.7%, and
a net gain of over 77 000 jobs. Job growth in logging and forestry services has
been more modest (around 1% annually), and employment in paper and allied
industries has declined by about 1% per year.
1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003
2003
Total
Paper manufacturing
Logging
Forestry services
Person-years
376 300
187 750
109 850
56 000
22 700
Annual change (%)
1 year
4.1
5.9
0.6
6.0
3.2
10 years
1.9
4.7
-1.0
0.9
1.4
300
250
200
Wood
150
Paper
100
Logging
Forestry services
50
'94 '95 '96 '97 '98 '99 '00 '01 '02 '03
31
Capital and Repair
Expenditures
(BILLION $)
8
7
Total
6
5
Paper
4
3
2
1
Logging
Maple Products
(in syrup equivalents)
(MILLION LITRES)
35
Production
30
25
20
Capital and repair expenditures in the forest industries were only $6.1 billion
in 2002, the lowest level recorded in nine years. Because of the softwood
lumber dispute, since May 2002 Canada’s forest industry has been required to
pay anti-dumping and countervailing duties to the U.S. government, limiting
their working capital and possibly their ability to obtain capital on the
financial markets. It is not surprising that with the erosion of their profits by
the U.S. import tariffs and the financial market instability due to the dispute,
the industry limited its investments to a minimum. Although less than a
year of underinvestment does not necessarily affect production capacity and
competitiveness, the companies’ long-term survival may be threatened if the
situation persists. Thus, it is important to monitor the situation closely.
2002
Wood
'93 '94 '95 '96 '97 '98 '99 '00 '01 '02
32
Capital and Repair Expenditures
Exports
15
Total
Paper manufacturing
Logging
Billion $
6.1
1.8
3.6
0.7
Maple sap collection was originally a traditional cottage industry and seasonal
activity. Now, however, the collection of sap, and its transformation into syrup,
butter, maple taffy and maple sugar, is a prosperous and rapidly expanding
industry. Producers have developed an export market that has grown at the
extraordinary annual rate of 6.4% over the past decade. However, the industry is
a victim of its own success: production increased at a rate of 10% per year during
the same period, creating huge surpluses. Inventories are so high that it would
take many years of bad harvesting to clear them. This situation could cause lower
prices, and hence a decline in the industry’s profitability. In 2002, the gross value
of production was $155 million, compared with $149 million the previous year.
Exports were valued at $147 million in 2003—a 4.5% decrease from the previous
year, while the volume of exports decreased by 1.1% during the same period.
2003
5
'94 '95 '96 '97 '98 '99 '00 '01 '02 '03
5 years
-4.5
-5.3
-4.7
-0.7
Maple Products
Million litres
10
Consumption
Annual change (%)
1 year
-10.8
-7.6
-11.4
-15.7
Production
Exports
Consumption
31.3
22.7
6.3
Annual change (%)
1 year
19.2
-1.1
-1.1
10 years
10.0
6.4
3.7 (6 years)
Consumption
export
Christmas Trees
Christmas Trees
Christmas trees, with their wonderful scent of pine and fir, are one way for city
dwellers to enjoy
Canada’s natural forests. Approximately 1.7 million Canadian
Production
households bought a Christmas tree in 2001, and 2.7 million Christmas trees
were exported to the United States, for a total of over 4.1 million Christmas
trees produced in Canada in 2001. This production is comparable to earlier years,
but the destination of the trees is gradually changing. Canadian consumption,
which was 2.4 million trees in 1992, is declining, while our exports are
increasing. In 2001, producers had estimated revenues of nearly $70 million,
including exports of close to $44 million.
2001
Production
Exports
Consumption
Millions
Hunted
4.1
2.7
1.7
( M I L L I ONS)
5
Production
4
Annual change (%)
1 year
0.6%
-11.8%
25.9%
10 years
-1.2%
1.7%
-4.6%
3
Consumption
Exports
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001
2
Farmed
'92 '93 '94 '95 '96 '97 '98 '99 '00 '01
Wildlife/Ranch-Raised Pelts
Pelts—Farmed and Trapped
Trapping was one of the first economic activities of the New World. Today, the
most expensive furs (mink and fox) come from fur farms, but approximately
half still come from our forests and are harvested by trappers using traditional
methods. The number of furs from fur farms has been steadily increasing since
1993, while the number from trapping fluctuates, going from 815 000 in 1992
to 1 547 000 in 1997.* In 2001, the last year for which data are available,
1.14 million furs came from fur farms and 1.01 million from trapping.* Revenues
from ranch-raised fur were $50 million during this period, while those from
trapping* were $23.2 million.
( M I L L I ON P E LT S )
Trapped
Note: * Excludes sealskins
2001
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001
Farmed
Trapped
1
Million pelts
1.1
1.0
1.5
1
Annual change (%)
1 year
5.2%
16.0%
10 years
6.3%
1.3%
Farmed
'92 '93 '94 '95 '96 '97 '98 '99 '00 '01
33
Number of Forest Fires
( T H O U SA N D S )
10
Forest fires in Canada vary considerably in number and in size of forest area
burned. There is a great fluctuation in fire activity both among provinces and
territories in a given year and within a given province or territory over the years.
For example, British Columbia went from a low of 1 876 hectares burned in 1997
to a record high of 266 412 hectares burned in 2003.
At the end of the 2003 fire season, the total number of fires was slightly above
average (108%) and the total area burned was well below average (58%). Since
1994 a decreasing overall trend in the total number of fires has resulted in an
average annual number of fires for this 10-year period of 7 591.
8
6
'94 '95 '96 '97 '98 '99 '00 '01 '02 '03
Area Burned
(MI L L I O N H E C TA R E S )
7
6
5
34
Forest Fires
4
3
2
1
'94 '95 '96 '97 '98 '99 '00 '01 '02 '03
Although fires larger than 200 hectares represent a small percentage (3%) of
the total number of fires, they account for 97% of the area burned. The recordsetting seasons for area burned were in 1994, 1995 and 1998. New technology
and research that analyzes fire and weather data, monitors fires using satellites,
studies fire behaviour and models future activity will help us to better understand
fire and the role it plays.
2003
Total number of fires
Total area burned
Ten-year average
8 218
7 591
1.6 million ha
2.8 million ha
sy Moth
in Pine Beetle
spen Tortrix
Insect Defoliation
Insect populations were relatively stable in Canada in 2002, except for the
mountain pine beetle epidemic in interior British Columbia, the large aspen
tortrix across Canada and the gypsy moth in eastern Canada. The mountain pine
beetle, the most destructive pest of mature pine in British Columbia, continues
to be one of the largest causes of economic loss and damage to environmental
values in the province. Preliminary 2003 data indicate that over 4 million
hectares of mountain pine beetle damage occurred. The area damaged was twice
that of 2002. Spruce budworm, prevalent across the country, remains at levels
well below the major infestations that occurred in the early 1990s. Forest tent
caterpillar defoliation is also less severe than the devastating defoliation in the
early 1990s. Although the forest tent caterpillar defoliation level for 2001 was
high, only when trees are defoliated by this insect for three to four consecutive
years is there a substantial impact on tree growth.
Areas Defoliated by
Fo ur Major Insects and
Beetle-Killed Trees
( M I L L I O N H E C TARES)
15
Spruce budworm
Forest tent caterpillar
Large aspen tortrix
12
Mountain pine beetle
9
6
3
The threat from invasive alien insects and diseases is of increasing concern. In
the past century, many of these species arrived from Europe and have become
established, some with devastating effects on forest health. The gypsy moth, one
of these invasive aliens, has established itself in the forests of eastern Canada
and British Columbia and is causing damage to several hardwood species.
0
'93 '94 '95 '96 '97 '98 '99 '00 '01 '02
With an increase in global trade, Asia is now also a major source of invasive alien
species. The presence of brown spruce longhorn beetle was confirmed in 2000
in Point Pleasant Park in Halifax. The Asian longhorn beetle, found in Toronto
in 2003, is a growing threat to the maples of the southern hardwood forest.
Similarly, emerald ash borer arrived in Canada in 2002 and is killing ashes, a
major economic and aesthetic species in southwestern Ontario. Even though
these three recent Asian arrivals are very localized (not included in the graph as
no data are available), they still pose a threat to Canadian forests if they escape
the quarantine areas.
Area Defoliated by
Gypsy Moth
( T H O U SA N D H E C TARES)
150
35
100
Moth
50
Tent Caterpillar
'93 '94 '95 '96 '97 '98 '99 '00 '01 '02
Budworm
Potential Harvest vs.
Actual Harvest of
Industrial Roundwood
(MILLIO N C U B I C M E T R E S )
200
Potential harvest—Softwood
Actual harvest—Softwood
150
100
Potential harvest—Hardwood
50
Actual harvest—Hardwood
'92 '93 '94 '95 '96 '97 '98 '99 '00 '01
Annual Allowable Cuts and Harvests
The regulation of harvest levels is a legal requirement for licensed forest management activities on public lands. Each forest estate subject to this legislation has
a certain harvest level specified for it—an Allowable Annual Cut (AAC), which is
the annual level of harvest allowed over a certain period of time.
AACs are revised periodically to reflect changing conditions and improvements in
knowledge. They apply to harvest on provincial lands; no legislated requirement
currently applies to private, territorial or federal land tenures. The managers of
these lands may have commitments to specific harvest targets, but there are no
obvious (legislated) accountability mechanisms. Since the estimates presented in
this graph account for private and federal lands as well as provincial Crown lands,
they are referred to as “potential harvest” rather than AACs.
Canada’s potential harvest has remained relatively stable since 1991. The 2001
potential harvest was 237 million cubic metres: 177 million cubic metres in
softwoods and 60 million cubic metres in hardwoods. Approximately one-third of
Canada’s potential harvest is in British Columbia, 38% is in Quebec and Ontario,
the Prairie provinces comprise roughly 19%, and the Atlantic region has 9%.
The hardwood harvest has been steadily increasing over time, and more than
doubled between 1991 and 2001. Softwood harvests, while variable, have
remained relatively constant since peaking in 1987, averaging 151 million cubic
metres over the past 10 years. This follows a number of years of significant increase
(2.8% per year from 1970 to 1987).
2001
36
Potential harvest—Softwood
Actual harvest—Softwood
Potential harvest—Hardwood
Actual harvest—Hardwood
Million cubic metres
176.5
151.7
60.3
33.0
Annual change (%)
1 year
1.2
-6.6
-0.3
-5.4
10 years
-0.5
0.9
-0.2
7.7
Successful natural regeneration
Successful regeneration
Regeneration of Harvested Forest Land
Net Harvest Area
Fo rest R egenerati on
Since the 1980s, most provinces and territories have passed laws or signed
agreements requiring logging companies to ensure regeneration on sites
they harvest. The graph shows the extent of successful regeneration on about
18.7 million hectares of public forest lands harvested between 1975 and 2001.
Regeneration status is based on three factors: adequacy of tree cover of
commercial species, density of crop (planted or seeded) trees, and the competing
non-crop vegetation. Uneven-aged stands—where a tree canopy is maintained
through repeated harvests—are not included in the land base shown in the graph.
(M I L LI O N H E CTARES)
20
Net harvest area
Successful natural
regeneration
15
The 2.5 million hectares of land unaccounted for in the graph is the area
that has remained understocked—that is, that has not yet regenerated with
enough trees of commercial species. These areas are not barren, having
regenerated with a variety of woody and herbaceous plants, but do not yet
contain sufficient trees of commercial species to be considered successfully
regenerated for harvesting purposes.
1
10
Natural regeneration plays a much larger role in Canadian forestry than planting
or seeding, accounting for 85% of the estimated 16.2 million hectares of forest
land successfully regenerated by 2001. In recent years the area regenerated has
exceeded the area harvested.
Successful natural2001
regeneration
Net harvest area
Successful natural regeneration
Successful planting and seeding
Million hectares
18.7
13.8
2.4
Annual change (%)
1 year
4.7
5.2
5.2
10 years
5.6
8.0
2.2
'92 '93 '94 '95 '96 '97 '98 '99 '00 '01
Net Harvest Area
37
NOTES
Data Sources
The main sources for the data are Statistics Canada,
Environment Canada, the Forest Products Association
of Canada, Natural Resources Canada—Canadian
Forest Service, the National Forestry Database and
the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. Most
of the information for the National Forestry Database
was collected by provincial and territorial natural
resource ministries. At the time of publication, data
were preliminary. As data are finalized, they will be
made available on the Internet in the National Forestry
Database Program’s Compendium of Canadian Forestry
Statistics (http://nfdp.ccfm.org).
The data regarding Canada’s forest and other wooded
land are based on Canada’s Forest Inventory 2001
(Can FI 2001), which uses different categories than
CanFI 1991. Comparisons between CanFI 1991
and CanFI 2001 cannot be made in a meaningful
way due to a number of differences in methods and
definitions in the source inventories (see text box
entitled “About the CanFI 2001 Statistics” in Overview section of this report).
In 2000, major conceptual and methodological changes
were incorporated into the Annual Survey of Manufacturers (ASM). With 2000 as reference year, the
universe was expanded to cover all manufacturing
units. In addition to the incorporated manufacturing
businesses over $30,000 in sales of manufactured
goods and with employees, the new ASM also includes:
a) all incorporated businesses under $30,000 that had
employees, b) all incorporated businesses that did not
have any employees regardless of their annual sales
value, and c) all unincorporated businesses. (Reference: CANSIM Tables 301-0003 and 301-0005 at
http://cansim2.statcan.ca).
38
Beginning with reference year 2000, data for Head
Offices are no longer included, which affects the
following variables: administration employees and
salaries; total employees, salaries and wages; cost of
materials, supplies and goods for resale; value of shipments; and other revenue and total value added.
Land Area
Canada’s total land area of 998.5 million hectares
factors in all geographical features including lakes,
rivers, streams and watersheds. The land area of
909.4 million hectares excludes these features.
Forest Resource
Ownership data are provided for the total forest and
other wooded land.
Although the federal government maintains ownership
in the Yukon and Northwest Territories, the territorial
governments have responsibility for management of
forests and selected other natural resources.
a
Annual allowable cut (AAC): The level of harvest set by the provinces and territories for a year.
AAC figures include data for both softwoods and
hardwoods. The AAC figures for Newfoundland,
Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick,
Quebec and Manitoba include federal, provincial
and private lands. Given the differences outlined
below, a national AAC cannot be calculated by
simply adding the provincial and territorial AACs.
silviculture treatments, such as site preparation,
planting, seeding or weeding, to meet established
standards. This category also includes land that
has not yet been surveyed. A significant proportion
of recently harvested areas will always be reported
as understocked because of the time lag between
harvesting and observable results of subsequent
treatments. The small percentage of the area harvested each year that is devoted to access roads is
not included in these data.
• The national AAC figure was arrived at by estimating
some data for private and federal lands, and converting the Ontario area figures into volume figures.
• Ontario provides figures for AAC (which it refers to as
the “maximum allowable depletion”) in hectares only.
• Alberta and Ontario do not include figures for private
lands in their AACs.
• British Columbia does not include all private lands
in its AAC.
d
• There are no AACs in the Northwest Territories or
Nunavut.
b
Harvesting: The national and provincial figures
for harvesting volume include data for industrial
roundwood only. The harvest level for fuelwood or
firewood for a single province may range as high
as 2.2 million cubic metres, and is not included
in these harvest figures.
• Although the AAC for British Columbia does not
include all private lands, these lands are included in
the harvest figure. The yearly harvest rate for British
Columbia may fluctuate, and in some cases it may
exceed the AAC. Over a five-year period, however,
the harvest figure would be equal to or lower than
the AAC.
c
e
Insect defoliation and beetle-killed trees:
The data relating to insects were provided by provincial and territorial agencies, and they include
moderate to severe defoliation only. Defoliation
does not always imply mortality; for example, stands
with moderate defoliation often recover and may not
lose much growth. Also, defoliation is mapped on
an insect species basis, and a given area may be
afflicted by more than one insect at a time. This may
result in double or triple counting in areas affected
by more than one insect, exaggerating the extent of
the total area defoliated.
All “area burned” figures are from the Canadian
Interagency Forest Fire Centre. Area burned includes
areas within National Parks.
39
Status of harvested Crown land: These data
reflect the cumulative area harvested since 1975.
Except for Prince Edward Island, data for private
lands are not included. The term “stocked” refers to
land where the forest cover meets certain timber-production standards established by forest management
agencies in each province and territory. The term
“understocked” refers to harvested land that requires
Sparking Discussion on FOREST FIRES
I
magine you have become fire chief of a major Canadian city. Your budget to protect the residents’
lives and property from fire is $1 billion.
How will you put that money to best use?
You probably won’t spend a billion dollars on fire
trucks. You know smoke detectors keep more people
safe than fire trucks. (Since 1978, house-fire deaths
in Canada have decreased by about 50 percent, though
our population has grown significantly. This is largely
attributable to increased public awareness and more
houses with smoke detectors.) Although fire trucks
are necessary, they are not the complete package.
As municipal fire chief, you will divide your “eggs”
into three “baskets” to address suppression, preparedness and mitigation. You will purchase an
appropriate mix of equipment, organize inspections,
order repairs, ensure codes and standards are in
place and enforced, educate people about evacuation procedures, and work with insurance companies
on issues such as building design.
In a report on Canada’s forests, why talk about
municipal fire protection? Because many of the
concepts that apply to urban protection can be
transferred to forest fire management.
40
deal with what we—the Canadian Forest Service
and others involved in forest fire management—
believe must be done in coming years to protect
Canadians’ lives and property and the environment.
We know certain things about wildfire:
• Climate change is a reality and one by-product is
an increased probability of forest fires.
• Communities are expanding into the forest. Our
presence there increases the risk of wildfire and
therefore the risk to life, property and the forest.
• Canada is a world leader in forest fire suppression. But, as with hurricanes, floods and
tornadoes, sometimes Mother Nature presents
unstoppable fire conditions.
Those of us working to understand and manage
forest fires must take a fresh look at recently developed knowledge, and ask some fundamental questions about how we manage fires.
Obviously, we can’t hang smoke detectors on every
tenth tree. But the thinking that goes into keeping
cities safe applies to the forest as well.
The same thinking that goes into urban fire protection can be applied to forest fires. There is an
emotional tug towards the rural equivalent of fire
trucks—airtankers (also known as water bombers) —but suppression is expensive, especially
when it involves aircraft.
In this edition of The State of Canada’s Forests
we consider forest fires in Canada and their positive and negative impacts. Elsewhere in this report
you will find information about what is being done
towards effective forest fire management. Here I will
Here are some quick facts, elaborated elsewhere
in this report. Fire occurrence and area burned
vary each year, but the annual average over the
past 40 years is about 2.8 million hectares. Ninetyseven percent of forest fires are extinguished before
Brian Emmett with members of his management team.
they consume 200 hectares. The escaping three percent use up 80 percent of the nearly $1 billion spent
on firefighting annually. Because of diminishing
marginal returns, if resources put into firefighting
were doubled, we would reduce the number of escaping fires by only 0.5 to 1.0 percent. So, regardless
of the total dollars going into fire suppression, some
wildfires will always escape.
Since no governments are cash-rich these days, we
have to be imaginative as we investigate the best
ways to manage forest fires.
We know that fire is a natural part of the ecosystem
and that we will need to use more prescribed burning,
but fires will still have to be suppressed and suppression will remain expensive. We will still need
to explore different models for increasing efficiency
and smoothing cash flow—such as leasing rather
than buying airtankers.
The formula of suppression, preparedness and
mitigation, used by the municipal fire chief, is
appropriate for our forest fire management strategy.
Suppression expenditures should ensure a modern
fleet of equipment and trained personnel; develop
a national training program integrating wildland
and municipal suppression techniques; develop
new technologies such as remote sensing to provide
rapid, cost-effective wildfire information; and
provide new equipment, such as external sprinkler
systems that could pre-soak homes in advance of
approaching fire.
We must ensure we are ready for fire’s arrival in our
community. Preparedness means having individual
and municipal emergency response plans, evacua-
tion routes and operational suppression equipment.
We also need an early warning system: fortunately,
Canada’s excellent fire danger rating system, used
worldwide, may be the next best thing to hanging
smoke detectors on trees.
Mitigation is equally important. We know that keeping city building codes up to date lessens fire damage
to people and property. For forests, this means looking
seriously at fire-resistant building materials and
reducing flammable vegetation around homes and
communities—in other words, a national FireSmart
program. We must fully integrate fire into land and
resource management, and use forest management
activities, such as harvesting, silviculture, road
layout and prescribed burning, to reduce the potential
for unwanted wildfires.
A broader, more integrated view of forest fires will
allow us to be more cost-efficient. We should look at
pooling risk—the underlying concept in insurance.
Our strategy must reflect fire dynamics and make
good business sense, so taxpayers can understand
how we are dealing with this challenge. A fire-smart,
business-smart system will more efficiently and effectively protect life, property and the environment.
At the CFS, we understand data gathering and we
understand the impacts. We will continue to share
our knowledge and ideas with fire management
agencies to develop approaches that enhance the
security of Canadians and our forests’ sustainability.
I am sure that, reading this report, you will gain a
better appreciation of the present and future challenges we all face.
Brian Emmett,
Assistant Deputy Minister, Canadian Forest Service
41
42
CANADIAN SUMMERS traditionally add a new dimension to evening newscasts and
morning papers: the FOREST FIRE REPORT. Often, viewers and readers take the
briefest of notice, then turn to items of more immediate interest.
But the SUMMER OF 2003 pushed the forest fire story to the TOP OF THE NEWS HOUR
and thrust it onto the FRONT PAGES OF NEWSPAPERS at home and abroad.
At the height of the drama, television viewers waited anxiously for
updates about conflagrations that, for a while, seemed UNSTOPPABLE.
2003: THE YEAR OF THE INFERNO
We saw and read about homeowners in several communities abandoning their dwellings as they
fled from the advancing flames. It seemed inevitable that whole towns would be destroyed. We
watched firefighters battling day after day, becoming exhausted yet still soldiering on. We read about
acts of heroism and tales of loss and devastation.
The forest fires of 2003, especially in British Columbia and Alberta, captured the public’s attention, not just
because there were so many of them, but because they literally hit us where we live. If these fires had consumed
the same number of hectares in a remote wilderness area, the stories might have held only passing interest.
But 2003 was a catastrophic year for British Columbia, where over a quarter of a million hectares of forest were
burned—more than 10 times the norm. This represented a third more wildland fires last summer as the 10-year
average—the yardstick used to compare fire statistics.
What made the B.C. situation particularly tragic was that tens of thousands of residents living in the worst-hit
areas had to be evacuated and close to 250 homes were destroyed in the city of Kelowna. The village of Louis
Creek, north of Kamloops, was all but eradicated.
In Alberta, the residents
PROVINCE
NUMBER OF FIRES
AREA BURNED (HECTARES)
of the community of Blair2003
10-year average
2003
10-year average
more had to be evacuated
British Columbia
2 447
1 803
266 412
19 168
last summer during the
Alberta
1 191
963
55 482
191 131
Lost Creek wildfire in the
Crow’s Nest Pass. The
Manitoba
1 148
502
430 170
339 786
number of fires in Alberta
Ontario
1 015
1 341
314 219
196 403
was up by 24 percent.
Canada
8 218
7 591
1 636 764
2 811 326
However, the area burned
in 2003 was less than a
third of the average. Manitoba was also hard hit in 2003, with more than twice the usual number of forest fires
and slightly over the usual area burned. While Ontario actually had fewer fires than the norm, the area burned
increased by about a third.
Still, according to the National Forest Fire Report issued by the Canadian Forest Service, while the number of
forest fires reported across Canada in 2003 exceeded the average by 627, the 1.64 million hectares burned was
actually down by more than one million hectares from the 10-year national average.
The two feature articles that follow will explore in detail the reasons and causes for forest fires, their consequences,
and what is being done to prevent or control them.
43
T he Na t u re of
44
FOREST
FIRES
FIRE IN THE FOREST
Canada’s boreal forest is a vast tract of mainly coniferous
woodland that stretches over 1000 kilometres between the frozen Arctic
and the more temperate forests and grasslands to the south. Every
summer, some part of these woodlands will turn into a raging inferno.
This particular area of Canada’s boreal forest, made up mostly of pine,
spruce and other evergreens, has been hot and dry for the better part of
a week. It’s difficult to view the surroundings because the crowns of the
mature trees have formed a tight canopy that allows only the occasional
sunbeam to penetrate. Underfoot, there is a multi-season accumulation of
needles, twigs and fallen branchlets, referred to by foresters as the duff
layer. The recent dry weather has turned this accumulation into a carpet
of potential kindling. A slight breeze riffles through the moisture-depleted
needles of the tall conifers, causing a restless tremor, as if the trees sense
that something is about to happen.
Perhaps it’s a live match tossed aside by a careless hiker after lighting
a cigarette. Or the embers of a hastily extinguished, abandoned campfire scattered onto the tinder-dry forest floor by a wayward gust of wind.
Or repeated lightning strikes from an overhead stack-up of storm clouds
formed as a result of the hot, dry weather.
Whatever the cause, a small patch of forest begins to smoulder and,
because of the readily available tinder, soon bursts into flame. It is primed
to become one of about 10 000 forest fires that will have an impact on an
estimated 2.5 to 3 million hectares of forest in Canada in any given year.
How much terrain this particular wildfire will engulf depends on numerous factors, such as how quickly it’s
spotted, whether it’s in an area easily accessible to firefighting equipment, the local fire management policies,
the current weather conditions, the amount of combustible vegetation on site, and the surrounding topography.
In addition, whether it’s in an area deemed high- or low-risk to humans and property, and how rich it is in commercial timber resources, will affect whether the experts quickly suppress it or allow it to burn out on its own
(while being monitored).
These factors will be explored as we consider the history of wildland fires in Canada, the conditions that lead to
forest fires, and the ecological, economic and social consequences they bring.
45
the landscape. A flurry of spring
fires after the snow melt was followed by a decline, as deciduous
and coniferous stands greened up,
producing a new growth of moistureladen, fire-resistant leaves and
needles. Hot, dry summer weather
brought on wildfires sparked by
lightning and Aboriginal-controlled
burn-offs. Then fires decreased and
eventually stopped with the onset
of wet fall weather.
IN TIMES GONE BY
Although in pre-settler days fire
regularly burned large sections of
UNTIL the coming of the European settlers, Canada’s forests thrived
on nature’s pattern of control—arboreal life cycles that revolved mainly Canada’s boreal forest, robust new
trees quickly emerged to replace the
around insect infestations, disease, and fires caused by lightning or
consumed timber. Over the millenthose deliberately set by Aboriginal peoples.
nia, much of the vegetation became
boriginal peoples in various
native peoples’ way of life changed
fire-dependent, actually requiring
parts of the country set fires for drastically in the nineteenth century. regular fire cycles for renewal.
several reasons: to clear the forest
In pre-settler days, the normal rou- Lodgepole and jack pine, for
for crop lands that provided food
tine was to treat specific areas with instance, developed resin-sealed
and medicinal plants, to manage
fire on a four- or five-year cycle
cones—termed serotinous—that
wildlife habitat, and to give them(although certain noxious plants
stay on trees for many years. With
selves living space. Burning was
were burned more frequently).
the heat of a forest fire, the resin
done at specific times of the year
This rotational burning provided
melts and the cones pop open, scatand under weather conditions that
Aboriginal harvesters with a landtering seeds that within 15 years or
allowed flames to be contained
scape area large enough to grow
so can produce new forest growth.
within a designated area. Such an
crops. These native peoples used
Plants that have fire-adapted traits
undertaking, called “prescribed
low-intensity fires that enriched the use whatever means are available
burning” in Canada and “fire use”
nutrients in the soil, allowing many
to perpetuate the species. Certain
in certain other forested countries,
medicinal plants to flourish in the
tree types such as the Ponderosa
required special knowledge and
burned-over areas.
pine and Douglas fir have thicker
skills in fire behaviour and vegetabark that resists fire damage and
The fire season in Canada began
tion reaction—skills that for the
most part became lost when the
in April, when grass fires scorched nurtures tender shoots within.
A
46
Others, such as the trembling
aspen, use the soil as insulation for
post-fire recovery through a network
of suckers (underground roots) that
quickly sprout in the nutrient-rich
soil resulting from a fire.
Nature also had a pattern of fire
activity, or fire regime, which
was different for every region in
Canada. Each fire regime has its
own length of fire intervals (years
between fires on one site), average area burned annually and fire
severity. In a country as vast as
ours, fires of varying intensities
can occur as often as every 10 or
15 years in some grassland areas or
as rarely as once in well over 500
years in the moisture-laden oldgrowth areas of the west coast. The
average interval between fires in
our boreal forest before the arrival
of the European settlers has been
estimated at 75 to 100 years. A fire
regime integrates many natural and
cultural influences. It changes only
with significant shifts in climate
or in fire policies, or when humans
profoundly alter the fuel structure.
All three of these changes have
come into play since the European
settlement of Canada.
FIRE: FRIEND OR FOE?
AT FIRST, the European newcomers saw the forest itself as the enemy, an obstacle that had to be cleared by
various means (including burning) in order to build communities and open up areas to agriculture. Mining
entrepreneurs found it much easier to locate ore deposits if the forest overstorey (the uppermost layer of
foliage forming the forest canopy) was first burned off. Railroad builders regarded fire as a much easier and
less expensive way to clear trackbeds than having to pay workers with saws, axes, dynamite and teams of
horses to uproot and haul away the forest cover.
O
nce established on the land,
however, these settlers
reverted to their abhorrence of fire,
brought with them from Europe
along with their treasured possessions and cultural beliefs, as the
destroyer of lives, personal property and commercial enterprises.
As the settlers pushed west and
north, the feeling that the country’s
forests were infinite, and therefore
available to be used as they saw fit,
was gradually replaced by the panicky conviction that the country’s
great forests, rich with harvestable
timber, were at risk of being wiped
out by wildfires.
As the country developed, isolated settlements became dependent on the forests for both their
sustenance and their livelihood.
And it was soon discovered that
forest-related employment could
go beyond logging. There were
recreational activities that the
hinterland dweller not only could
enjoy personally, but could offer
for a fee to hikers, hunters, fishers,
canoeists, bird watchers and other
nature lovers.
47
T
he forest’s potential for providing non-timber commercial
products was also soon recognized.
These included wildland meat and
fish for domestic and export sales,
other edible products such as maple
syrup, berries, nuts and mushrooms,
the fur and hides of various indigenous animals in demand by the
fashion industry, decorative plants
such as Christmas trees and floral
accessories, and arts and crafts
supplies. There were also—as the
country’s Aboriginal people had
known for centuries—herbs, roots
and medicinal plants with a growing
market in Canada and abroad.
48
This groundswell of negative opinion
about fire in the forest was fed
from time to time by reports of
catastrophic fires that destroyed
communities across North America.
A century of calamitous fires in
Canada between 1825 and 1922
strengthened the belief that fire
threatened public safety and laid
SUPPRESSION AT ALL COSTS
waste accessible timber and nonONCE THE NEW CANADIANS realized that forest fires could mean huge
timber products. Early foresters
losses of human life, property and natural resources, they began to pres- and the general public began to
sure law and policy makers to prevent or eradicate every wildfire within
focus their efforts—at least in the
reach. All-out war was declared. Even the terminology took on combative southern, heavily populated areas of
the country—almost exclusively on
overtones: fire fighting, water bombing, first strike, initial attack,
mopping up. This is hardly surprising since many of the professional fire- wildfire prevention and suppression.
fighters were veterans of real wars in Europe and elsewhere—including As an era of advocacy developed,
those “firebirds” who fought this forest-destroying enemy from the air.
environmental groups began
lobbying to conserve mature and
old-growth forests, partly through
the elimination of forest fires. This
insistence on so many fronts on
preventing or eradicating as many
forest fires as possible was fortified
by technological advances in transportation, firefighting equipment,
communications and, more recently,
satellite and computer technology.
Ministry of Natural Resources has
observed a doubling each decade
for the past 40 years of the number
of days per month during fire season
that conditions are conducive to the
outbreak of devastating fires. The
agency also reports that warming
nous conifer stands began to die off trends have pushed the start-times
without spreading the next genera- for fires to earlier dates in the spring
tion of fire-activated seedlings. This and the stand-down times, when fire
resulted in a glut of debris from dead is no longer a threat, to later dates in
In recent decades, fire suppression
trees and opened up the area to such the fall.
programs have become extremely
species as balsam fir, which is suseffective: about 97 percent of fires
ceptible to insect infestations that Various fire experts had warned of
in Canada’s commercial forests are
the possibility of more intense and
kill the trees, resulting in further
contained at less than 200 hectares. flammability.
dangerous wildfires, in both Canada
The other 3 percent are difficult to
and the United States, for many
control; they account for almost all
In the boreal forest, nature’s way
years. Those words of caution went
of the area burned and represent
provided a mosaic pattern of
largely unheeded, however, as decimost fire management expenditures fire-ravaged stands of same-age
sion makers continued to insist on
in Canada. This does not include
trees, creating a natural firebreak.
lengthening intervals between fires
fires in extremely remote areas that Interfering with nature through
are allowed to burn out on their own suppression of fire in these stands through aggressive suppression.
And many homesteaders build subif they do not endanger human life
set in motion the mechanism for
stantial dwellings in the wildland/
or property. The timber in these
larger, wider-ranging and often
urban “interface” without using
areas is usually considered not com- devastating blazes.
fire-retardant materials or leaving
mercially viable.
firebreaks around their property.
Fire management experts point out
Ironically, however, by tampering
that such outbreaks release large
Fortunately, the pendulum of Canawith the natural fire cycles—and
amounts of carbon stored in both
dian public opinion has begun to
by embracing fire eradication as
living vegetation and trunks of fallen
swing back, and many decision
the overriding principle of fire
trees. Carbon is one of the main vilmanagement—people have set the
makers realize that not only is it
lains in the global warming scenario,
stage for more catastrophic fires.
impossible to extinguish every fire,
and releasing it can lead to even
it is economically unfeasible and
more disastrous fires in our wildWhen certain natural fire cycles
ecologically unsound.
lands. The Forest Fire Science and
were interrupted, jack pine and
Technology division of the Ontario
other serotinous and semi-seroti-
49
Furthermore, fire suppression is
subject to the law of diminishing
returns. Based on recent experiences in Canada and other developed nations, suppression seems to
be reaching its limit of economic
and physical effectiveness. As a
research scientist at the Canadian
Forest Service of Natural Resources
Canada puts it: “To be able to suppress the last 3 percent of fires that
cause 97 percent of the damage,
we would need a firefighter behind
every tree and a helicopter on every
mountain slope.”
burn. Weather conditions influence
the ignition of fires by lightning.
Furthermore, the weather can create
drought conditions that turn trees
to tinder and the forest floor into a
Perhaps it is time to step back, study carpet of combustibility. Drought
and lightning strikes can also leave
the situation from every possible
angle, and come up with solutions the vegetation open to infestations of
that, while not perfect, will make the parasitic insects and disease, which,
in nature’s vicious circle, create
best of the situation.
more fuel for the next flare-up.
FUEL
FACTORS INFLUENCING FIRES
50
It’s a given that if you do not have
fuel, you do not have fire. The bigger
the fuel load, the more intense
the fire. Under natural conditions
Canada’s forests had settled down
to an age-old cycle of limited burn,
regeneration, a healthy growth
period, limited burn, regeneration,
and so on. Vegetation adapted to
this routine and all was well with
the forest. But once humans interfered with this cycle, even though
there were fewer fires, the fuel load
increased, inviting disaster.
AS WE SAW in the fire scenario opening this article, many factors influence fire in our forests. The six most important are weather (widely
INSECTS AND DISEASES
considered the most pertinent), fuel, insect and disease infestations,
One positive effect of fire is that
an ignition source, topography and human intervention.
it regularly clears the landscape
of aging trees before they become
only in the warmer months, when
WEATHER
susceptible to insect infestation and
the country is free of ice, snow
disease. By suppressing as many
Weather has a pervasive effect on
and spring/autumn rains. Weather
forest fires as possible, humankind
the incidence of wildfire. Cataalso plays a role in fuel availabilhas interrupted this natural cycle,
strophic fires occur in our forests
ity: fuel sources have to be dry to
vals between fires can well exceed
500 years. On our east coast rain
conditions frequently keep the
land too wet for the intrusion of
fire. In vast prairie areas, grassland fires are the biggest danger.
In southern deciduous woodlands,
fires are a definite risk, but dead
leaves are less combustible than
conifer needles, and they tend to
trap moisture on the forest floor.
Deciduous trees, moreover, do not
have the high levels of combustible
resins that conifers have.
allowing trees to live longer and
thus become vulnerable to parasitic
attack. This creates a larger and
more widespread fuel load, setting the conditions for bigger, more
intense fires. In addition, global trading has brought an invasion of exotic
pests to prey on trees that have no
natural defences against them.
IGNITION
There are two sources of ignition in our forest—lightning and
humans. Lightning strikes cause
nearly 40 percent of our wildfires
and about 85 percent of the total
area burned, because most occur
in remote areas, where as many
as 400 strikes can occur during a
single storm.
Fires set by humans are usually
located in more accessible areas,
so they are easier to reach with
firefighting equipment but are
likely to put people and property at
risk. Human-made fires are caused
by careless smoking or camping,
vehicles running hot in dry grass or
bush, badly tended land-clearing
and slash burning, downed power
lines, industrial accidents (such as
welding sparks), or arson.
TOPOGRAPHY
Some areas of Canada have minimal to non-existent risk of forest
fires—such as the far northern
lands that are under ice and snow
most of the year and contain little
flammable vegetation, and the
west-coast rainforests where inter-
It is the boreal forest in near north
and western sections of Canada,
with its multitudinous coniferous
trees, that feeds a forest fire. And
it’s the rugged topography, from the
dwarfed mountains of the Pre-Cambrian Shield to the lofty Rockies
and other western ranges, that
adds to a fire’s intensity. Flames
driven by high winds move uphill
more rapidly than on flatlands. But
nature has her own suppression
techniques: rivers and mountain
ridges act as natural firebreaks, and
rainfall checks or extinguishes fire.
Topography can also influence rainfall, as in last year’s Okanagan fires.
The main victims were populated
areas between two mountain ranges
where rain is less frequent. After
a four-year drought, the tinderdry terrain was a tragedy waiting
to happen.
51
HUMAN INTERVENTION
Containment is both the humanmade and the natural way to control
fire. Start a blaze in your fireplace
and it will die out once it has used
up the available fuel. If you want it
to continue burning, you add more
logs, but you still limit the quantity,
and you know the boundaries of the
fireplace will control the flames.
If you are careless, however, you
might throw a bunch of wood on the
fire and settle in for a long winter’s
nap, with the firescreen open and
a pile of kindling within a spark’s
jump in front of the fireplace.
52
This scenario is a microcosm of
what humankind has done in our
forests. Nature had set up a pattern
of containment: at random intervals
either a surface fire would clear the
understorey of a stand of timber
or a full-blown crown fire (boosted
into the treetops by winds or a
thick, dry duff layer) would take
out most or all of the stand, with
the fire eventually dying out due
to less conducive weather conditions or a lack of fuel. Humans, by
interfering with nature and interrupting this natural fire cycle, have
literally added fuel to the fire. And
by ignoring the warnings of fire
experts, we have figuratively pulled
the blankets up over our heads and
gone to sleep.
shells of trees that provide even
more fuel, causing larger and more
destructive fires.
CONSEQUENCES OF FOREST FIRES
Forest fires can dramatically affect
Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions. In a year when many fires
are burning, the amount of carbon
released into the atmosphere can
virtually equal the level emitted
by industrial operations. This can
affect whether Canada in a given
year is considered a carbon sink (a
repository of carbon) or a carbon
source (when carbon escapes into
the atmosphere, it helps to create
greenhouse gases and speed subsequent global warming). At stake is
our ability to honour our commitments under the Kyoto Accord to
reduce such emissions.
THE CONSEQUENCES of forest fires fall into three broad categories:
ecological, social and economic. As with most things in life, the conseSmoke and pollution also have to
quences are not all good or all bad. One’s view of a particular effect is
influenced by such factors as personal loss or gain and one’s own values. be considered. Smoke in communities can cause breathing problems,
especially among the very young
Animal life is not unduly affected
ECOLOGICAL
and the very old. In some cases, too
by fire. The public perception that
As we have seen, fire has a benefiforest fires kill vast numbers of wild much smoke leads to evacuation of
cial influence on species composianimals is not correct; like the veg- the residents, with all its attendant
tion, abundance and age. For our
etation itself, animals have learned problems. Smoke can also obscure
boreal forest, periodic cleansing
highways in forested areas, causto adapt to periodic blazes.
through understorey burn-off
ing traffic delays and accidents.
and setting a mosaic of natural
Regular forest fires are useful to
And smoke may contribute to
firebreaks will trigger new growth,
cleanse the woodlands of parasitic
global warming: researchers are
clear out a flammable duff layer,
insects and disease. However,
studying the effects of sunlight on
and stagger the age range of vegshould the insects or disease get
particles of ash in smoke. Finally,
etation to encourage regeneration. there first, they can create dead
smoke from fires in Canada has
53
occasionally drifted into the United
States and resulted in communities
infringing Environmental Protection
Agency regulations, potentially
causing international ill will.
Fire ecologists point out one other
negative consequence of forest
fires—the tragedy of a blaze destroying a rare type of habitat set aside as
a park for endangered species.
SOCIAL
The social consequences of forest
fires in Canada are far-reaching,
from the disruptions of the normal
living patterns of firefighters and
community residents to health concerns related to smoke inhalation.
Evacuating residents from a firethreatened area can have both
financial and cultural costs. For
native peoples, being flown to larger
communities can be a particular
wrench to their way of living, with
the resultant exposure to such
detrimental influences as fast foods,
traffic hazards and an alien lifestyle.
54
A particularly devastating fire can
result in the psychological damage
of losing a home and family treasures
and having to start all over again.
A loss of heritage can also occur,
should community halls, libraries
and other structures be destroyed.
In addition, parks and recreational
areas are liable to go up in smoke,
creating a sense of emotional
loss. In the Okanagan fires of last
summer, many of the wooden railway bridges over the Kettle River
were destroyed, resulting in an
aesthetic loss to history buffs and
a loss of convenience to hikers
who used the abandoned bridges.
Fortunately, these bridges are
being rebuilt, but their historic
value can never be recaptured.
ECONOMIC
Forest fires have consequences on
both sides of the economic ledger.
The loss of revenue from burned
trees may not be critical, since
about half the timber burned is
non-commercial, located in the far
north. Moreover, the loss of marketable timber could be mitigated if
provincial and territorial agencies
put in place measures permitting
the salvaging of wood from burnedout areas. In addition, forest companies often control such large tracts
of timberland that they can shift
operations to another part of the
forest and come back to the burnedover area once it has regenerated.
On the other hand, planning to cut
in one area is expensive in itself;
shifting crews and equipment to
a different location increases the
costs considerably. There are also
potential losses of shareholder
equity if the fire destroys sawmills
or other property and equipment.
Although firefighting represents
a huge investment by government
agencies and the private sector,
in training and salaries for personnel as well as purchasing and
maintaining equipment, the argument can also be made that this is
a normal part of doing business.
In addition, many rural communities rely on the jobs provided
to firefighting crews, and the
Canadian economy benefits
from the manufacture and sale of
suppression equipment—from
aircraft to pumps to hoses—both
nationally and internationally.
The costs for direct fire suppression
in Canada have been averaging about
$500 million a year. This figure
spiked in 2003, when British
Columbia alone spent approximately $600 million and several
other provinces had worse than
normal fire seasons. While this
certainly drains the public coffers,
much of this money goes towards
salaries, food and equipment
purchases for the firefighters and
buying or leasing of firefighting
equipment from Canadian firms.
The cost of cleaning up and rebuilding in communities harmed
by forest fires, while a burden to
those sustaining the losses, is also
a source of revenue for individuals
and commercial enterprises engaged
in the restorative work.
In spite of these moderating factors
on monetary expenses, however,
the costs in human suffering,
wasted resources and devastated
landscape are still considered
unacceptably onerous by the overwhelming majority of forest stake-
holders. Measures need to be—and
are being—taken to substantially
reduce these costs while safeguarding wildland sustainability through
sound forest management.
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
FIRE MANAGEMENT, then, is a complex issue. Like every other element in nature, fire has both a positive
and a negative side. Seeing it as a terrifying enemy to be subdued at all costs has not worked, but returning to nature’s fire regimes is also no longer practical.
K
elvin Hirsch, Research Management Advisor with the
Canadian Forest Service’s Northern
Forestry Centre, Natural Resources
Canada, has written: “Fire has
been and is likely to become an
even more significant disturbance
in Canada’s forest ecosystems. This
means the sustainable management
of these forests will be dependent
upon the ability to balance the
social, economic, and ecological
impacts of fire. It is the responsibility of government, industry, nongovernmental organizations, and
the public to encourage and foster
the open and informed evaluation
and debate of the future directions
of forest fire management policies
and practices in Canada.”
Simply put, we as forest stakeholders must acknowledge and accept
that fire will occur, and we must
learn how to live with and adapt to
this fact of life.
55
Ma na g i ng
56
FOREST
FIRES
THE PATH TO SUSTAINABILITY
For generations, the goal of forest fire suppression in Canada was based on a European model:
fire was seen as bad and had to be prevented and controlled. Today, however, we understand that fire
is a natural disturbance in forest ecosystems—a process that should be managed. A holistic approach
to forest fire management considers that forest fires are integral to the health, structure and diversity
of forest ecosystems. Foresters also increasingly recognize that small controlled fires result in new
growth in the forests and reduce the likelihood of large, disastrous fires.
However, fires cannot be allowed to run their natural course when they threaten lives, property or
resources. Canada has two levels of fire management—intensive and extensive. In the intensive zone,
which includes communities, valuable timber and other values at risk, all fires are actively suppressed. In
the extensive zone, forest fires are monitored and if they pose a threat to social or resource values, they
may be suppressed. The key is to balance the costs and benefits of fire to help ensure the ecological,
economic and social sustainability of our forests, the forest industry and forest-based communities.
FIRE MANAGEMENT IN CANADA
management, making this one of the Canada is a leading-edge nation in
most costly aspects of forest manage- forest fire research; many Canadian
Fire management involves planning, ment in Canada.
discoveries and developments are
preventing and fighting fires to
used throughout the world.
The Canadian Interagency Forest
protect people, property and the
Fire Centre coordinates the exThe forest fire research program at
forest resource as well as using
the Canadian Forest Service (CFS),
fire to attain forestry, wildlife and change of firefighters, equipment
and know-how among Canadian
Natural Resources Canada, has
land-use objectives. Fire managefire management agencies (see text evolved along with fire management takes place in the context of
box on page 64). It also compiles ment. The CFS research program
balancing environmental, social
national forest fire statistics and
provides stability and continuity
and economic criteria.
facilitates information sharing among for the research activities carried
Ninety-three percent of Canada’s fire agencies.
out by industry, universities and
forests are publicly owned. Thereprovincial/territorial agencies.
Fire research in Canada involves
fore, fire management is largely
a partnership between provincial
the responsibility of provincial
KNOWING THE RISK
and territorial agencies, the federal
and territorial governments, with
federal departments managing their government, universities and the Predicting when and where a
private sector. Scientists from across fire is most likely to start and how
own lands. Collectively, Canadian
agencies spend between $400 mil- the country work together to better it will behave is the first step in
lion and $800 million a year on fire understand and manage forest fires. suppression. Timely information
57
fire agencies in British Columbia,
Alberta, Saskatchewan, Yukon,
Malaysia, Indonesia, New Zealand
and Mexico.
allows fire managers to have their
equipment ready where it is most
likely to be needed. A number of
information systems and technologies have been developed to monitor
forest and weather conditions and
other factors, and provide a threat
rating of fire potential.
58
The CFS, in cooperation with provincial and territorial fire agencies,
developed the Canadian Forest
Fire Danger Rating System
(CFFDRS), which determines the
potential risk of wildfires. The
system uses weather, fuels and
topography to predict fuel moisture
and the likelihood of a fire starting.
It also predicts the rate and direction of fire spread, fire intensity, the
amount of fuel consumed, and the
fire perimeter and area.
Locating actual fires, monitoring their
spread and observing their behaviour are crucial to fire management.
Not knowing that a fire exists until
it is large, or underestimating its
rate of spread, could have disastrous
results. Remote sensing technologies,
computer modelling and Internet
communication have advanced our
The Spatial Fire Management System ability to monitor fire activity in
near real time, allowing agencies
(SFMS) combines the CFFDRS
to manage complex fire situations
and fire management models in
more effectively.
a geographic information system
mapping environment. SMFS also
In Quebec, lightning accounts for
integrates snow cover, greenup,
25 percent of forest fires but 84 pergrass curing and rainfall derived
cent of area burned. All lightning
from satellite imagery or other
sources. It predicts fire occurrence, strikes that hit the ground are
analyzed by a computer system—
models fire growth and recommends resource allocation. SFMS Système d’Information sur les
generates daily or hourly maps of Incendies de Forêt. The system proweather conditions, fuel moisture vides constant access to the most
estimates, fire ignition probability, recent information on weather, fires,
resources and operating costs. It
and predicted fuel consumption,
also analyzes drought, fuels and fire
fire size and difficulty of control.
behaviour to identify the sectors
The SFMS also provides informa- where the risk of fire is highest.
tion for policy setting and review,
and fire planning, such as estabThe Ontario Ministry of Natural
lishing initial attack bases and
Resources is working on a computer
weather stations. SFMS is curmodel—the Level of Protection
rently used by the CFS as well as Analysis Tool—that uses historic
weather and fire data to help
managers determine the most costeffective resources and organization
to use.
THE NATIONAL SITUATION
The Canadian Wildland Fire
Information System (CWFIS) is a
national version of the SFMS. It
automatically accesses weather
data across Canada, produces
daily national maps of fire weather
and fire behaviour potential, and
disseminates the maps through
the Web. The system supports
agency-level fire management decisions and national mobilization of
resources, and provides a national
overview of the fire situation to
governments, fire agencies, the
media and the public.
ASSESSING FIRE IMPACTS
Sustainable forest management
requires assessing the impacts of
wildfire on timber supply, recreational opportunities and wildlife
habitat, as well as measuring the
effects of various practices on fire
The Fire Monitoring, Mapping and activity. The Wildfire Threat Rating
Modelling System (FireM3) uses
System (WTRS) combines forest data,
satellite imagery to produce daily values and management options to
national maps of large forest fires. generate a wildfire planning model.
A joint venture of the CFS and the It assesses four main components
Canada Centre for Remote Sensing, of risk: ignition, values at risk, supthe system identifies and locates
pression capability and expected
actively burning fires, maps the
fire behaviour. The system maps
area burned, and models burnthem separately and in combinaing conditions and fire behaviour. tion to generate an overall fireForest companies, environmental threat rating.
scientists and other researchers
are also using this methodology to
The WTRS helps forest managers
evaluate the role and impact of fire determine how land-use decisions
on forest ecosystems.
affect the wildfire threat in a given
area. It also allows them to evaluate
shifts in harvesting and silviculture,
and to identify the best locations for
initial attack and prescribed burning. The WTRS will be integrated
into the Spatial Fire Management
System to enhance the applicability
of both systems.
Alberta’s Sustainable Resource
Development Department is developing Prometheus—a fire-growth
model that automates many of the
manual calculations when using
the CFFDRS. It incorporates large
fires jumping across or spotting ahead
of a control line. This state-ofthe-art model predicts the growth
of large fires that have escaped
initial attack; evaluates the
threat of wildfires to communities,
recreational facilities and other
values-at-risk; and measures how
59
The British Columbia Forest Service
Protection Program is using space
technology to help fight forest fires.
REMSAT II (Real-time Emergency
Management via Satellites) provides
real-time satellite data for fire
management planning, firefighting
and post-fire damage assessment.
The system improves the flow of
information across three levels of
fire management—headquarters, a
mobile command centre near the
fire, and on-the-ground firefighters.
The system identifies the positions
of all the resources and equipment
by navigation satellites and relays
this information automatically via
telecommunication satellites.
LOW-TECH WORKS TOO
different strategies could affect
fire behaviour. It can be used by
fire agencies across Canada as well
as by researchers and municipal
planners to study and reduce the
threat of large fires.
FIRE SUPPRESSION
60
Every year about 8500 forest fires
are reported in Canada. Almost all
of these—97 percent—are controlled at a very small size, thanks
primarily to sophisticated equipment and technology, advanced
research, highly trained personnel
and good communications.
Canada, along with the United
States and Australia, is considered
very effective at suppressing fires.
All three countries have excellent
systems for planning, monitoring
fire danger and rapidly moving
resources to trouble spots. They
operate on the basis that the best
time to fight a fire is when it is
small. Efforts are continuing to
reduce the few fires that escape
initial attack. These fires can cause
devastating damage and become
extremely difficult to control. They
endanger people, property and the
forest resource.
A major challenge in firefighting is
quickly getting a lot of water to a
fire. This is particularly important
at the wildland/urban interface—
where homes and communities are
within or on the edge of a forest.
Sprinkler systems are highly effective if they are in place long enough
before a fire arrives to saturate the
structures and nearby fuels, and
to raise the local relative humidity.
Because they are installed before
the fire arrives, no lives are put at
risk. Also, sprinklers soak the surface without exposing the mineral
soil. This is more environmentally
friendly than building a fire line
using heavy machinery to scrape
away surface material down to
the mineral soil, and it reduces
the chance of erosion or of silt
filtering into streams or ponds.
A powerful sprinkler system, developed by Saskatchewan Environment
and Sands Dragline Systems—
called a Values Protection Unit—
can be a powerful ally in protecting
homes and other buildings. It is a
high-capacity version of the sprinkler units long used by Saskatchewan firefighters, and the only one
of its kind in North America.
The sprinkler system proved itself
in the summer of 2003 when the
Tokumm Creek fire threatened
the Lake Louise and Banff areas.
A Saskatchewan team laid hoses
and sprinklers across the two-anda-half-kilometre Vermillion Pass
leading into the Bow River Valley
available to burn. “Ladder fuels,”
in the form of low branches, young
trees and other vegetation, provide
“rungs” for the fire to climb to the
tree crowns where the wind can
rapidly spread the fire. Decades of
increasingly effective fire suppression have led to a buildup of
forest fuels, which increases the
risk of fires, especially during hot,
dry, windy weather. The severe
and another one and a half kilofires that result can degrade water
metres around the Marble Canyon
Recreation Site. Pumps and sprink- quality, the position of the water
table and stream-flow regimes.
lers soaked a wide line across the
They also release large amounts
valley and around the recreation
of particulates and carbon dioxide
site, allowing a back burn that
into the atmosphere.
stopped the fire.
PRESCRIBED BURNING
Canada has had remarkable success
in putting out forest fires. Successful suppression, however, can be a
two-edged sword. Fires are part of
nature’s way of shaping, maintaining and renewing forests. Thwarting this natural process can change
the structure of tree stands, reduce
forest health, lead to loss of productivity and, ironically, increase
potential fire severity by allowing
fuels to increase.
A key factor in the severity of a
forest fire is the amount of fuel
(trees, brush and surface litter)
Fire agencies are turning to prescribed burning as a way to mitigate
these dangers. Fire managers can
determine when a particular area
is overdue for fire and trained
specialists can light a prescribed
fire when burning conditions are
low to moderate. Such fires are
carefully controlled, taking into
account weather, vegetation, fire
behaviour and terrain. While some
risk is involved, it is much less than
the risk of letting a wildfire burn
unchecked or trying to exclude all
fires. The cost—an average $80 per
hectare—is orders of magnitude
less than the millions of dollars
spent fighting a large wildfire.
61
tions and distributions of unburned
islands of trees using future highresolution satellite images.
SFMN’s researchers discovered
that recently burned trees should
be left to protect the prime feeding
and nesting habitat of the three-toed
and the black-backed woodpeckers.
These birds migrate long distances
to take advantage of the insect and
beetle larvae that infest lightly
burned trees for several years after
a fire. Until this discovery, salvage
harvesting of all merchantable
timber took place soon after a fire.
62
Parks Canada has played a lead
role in using prescribed burning
as a forest management tool. Fire
managers have a dual role: providing fire protection and sustaining
fire-dependent ecosystems. In
the latter role, they follow a fairly
aggressive program of prescribed
burning. Trained staff use aerial
ignition, with helicopter-mounted
drip torches or chemical incendiaries
for larger burns, and hand-held
or truck-mounted torches to ignite
roadside fuel accumulations.
High Park, in the vicinity of prime
downtown real estate, in 1997.
Another SFMN study found that
it may be possible to “fire-proof”
certain forests by manipulating
FIRE AND SUSTAINABLE FORESTRY the spatial arrangement of different forest types, especially white
The University of Alberta’s Sustainspruce and aspen. Many forest
able Forest Management Network
companies operating in western
(SFMN) is one of 18 Centres of
Canada rely on one of these two
Excellence across Canada. A key
species. These findings may be
part of its program is studying
translated into harvesting and
how natural disturbances such as
silviculture strategies that exploit
fire, disease, insect infestations
the properties of aspen stands to
and human activities maintain or
sustain the white spruce harvest.
interfere with a forest’s ecological
balance. In groundbreaking work
The SFMN is also studying the
Even urban forests can benefit from it calibrated existing infrared
impacts of climate change on future
prescribed burns. Windsor, Ontario, satellite technology to accurately
forests. (See article on page 72.)
uses this technique regularly in its find unburned islands of trees left Based on forest fire simulations
nature preserve parks, and Toronto behind in large forest fires. The work up to the period 2040 to 2060,
began regular prescribed burns in
sets a baseline for analyzing the loca- researchers are predicting a major
change in western Canadian forests
resulting from climate change, followed later by changes to eastern
Canadian forests.
HARVESTING NATURALLY
Harvesting trees from healthy
forests must also be done with
care. Researchers are studying the
aftermath of forest fires to learn the
best ways to harvest trees while
maintaining the integrity of forest
ecosystems. The goal is to simulate
forest conditions as they would be
after a fire, since a more natural
approach will help to maintain
healthy, diverse ecosystems.
Forest fires seldom destroy all the
trees in the area burned. Many firedamaged trees continue to stand,
and the patterns of living and dead
trees, provide openings for a new
forest, as well as habitat for wildlife
species that live in the cavities of
dead trees or in logs. While both
harvesting and wildfire remove
trees from the landscape, they leave
behind different soil composition
and erosion, different organisms,
carbon budgets and long-term forest
productivity. All of these need to be
evaluated so that harvesting practices can have a disturbance pattern
similar to that of fire.
The Ecosystem Management by
Emulating Natural Disturbance
(EMEND) project is part of the
SFMN. It is studying which harvesting practices best emulate
the effects of wildfire on forest
ecosystems. It considers both
timber and non-timber values,
and other economic and social
factors. EMEND includes partners from forest industry, governments, universities and other
research organizations.
EMEND is one of the largest singlesite forest experiments in the world.
It has a 100-year timeframe and is
believed to be the only study ever
undertaken to monitor disturbance
effects over the life cycle of a forest.
Its innovative technology includes
field tours and a web site, and it
SALVAGE HARVESTING
attracts visiting researchers and
policy makers from around the world. The area burned by fire varies
considerably from year to year,
but for the past 40 years, the averForest companies are already putage annual area burned has been
ting into practice lessons learned
2.8 million hectares—almost five
from EMEND. In addition to cutting
times the size of Prince Edward
trees in a physical pattern similar
Island. In unusually destructive
to that left behind by a typical
years more commercially viable
forest fire, harvesters leave clumps timber is destroyed by fire than is
of trees in place for wildlife habitat harvested. This loss significantly
and seed regeneration. Organic
reduces the amount of wood that
material is also left, to allow nutri- can be sustainably harvested from
ents to return to the soil.
Canada’s forests.
63
CANADIAN INTERAGENCY FOREST FIRE CENTRE
COOPERATION IS SPELLED ‘CIFFC’
The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC) was opened on June 2, 1982, to provide operational forest
fire management services to member agencies. CIFFC provides information and services to these agencies to
improve forest fire management in Canada.
A MODERN FUNDING APPROACH
The federal government contributes one-third of the Centre’s operating costs. The remaining two-thirds is
funded by the provinces and territories according to the amount of forest land they possess.
ADVANCED RESOURCE SHARING
Resources in Canada—equipment, personnel and aircraft—are shared under the Canadian Interagency
Mutual Aid Resources Sharing (MARS) Agreement.
Agreements with the United States allow for quick movement of resources through Customs and Immigration—
mandatory during a severe fire season.
In addition to cooperating with the U.S., CIFFC negotiates requests for assistance from other countries when
required, and maintains membership with international organizations such as the North American Forestry
Commission.
THE FLEET
CIFFC’s national air tanker fleet consists of 13 Canadair CL-215s which are operated by the provinces on
behalf of the country as a whole. Over 50 CL-215/415 aircraft, along with numerous land-based air tankers,
operate in Canada. The CL215/415 is the number one resource request and has contributed to the overall
fire suppression capability in initial attack and ground support.
THE HOT, DRY SEASON
During the fire season, CIFFC operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. An integral part of its operation is the
fire “situation report” which provides information and intelligence to all member agencies. CIFFC also identifies available resources, including aircraft, personnel, equipment and specialty items such as communication
networks and infrared line scanners.
The Centre maintains daily contact with the National Interagency Fire Centre in Boise, Idaho, and exchanges
resources as needed across the international boundary.
64
THE FUTURE
The Canadian Council of Forest Ministers originally directed CIFFC to promote and improve fire management
on a national level. The Centre continues to meet this challenge through its agreements and the development of exchange standards through various Working Groups.
Internationally, CIFFC will continue to promote Canadian fire management technology in the global marketplace.
Thanks to technological advances,
forest managers can now salvage
commercially viable lumber and
pulpwood from burnt forests. One
benefit of salvage harvesting is to
reduce dead and damaged trees
that would provide fuel for future
fires or encourage insect outbreaks.
On the other hand, burned forests
provide a habitat for wildlife, seeds
for certain trees, a microclimate
for understorey vegetation, and a
fount of nutrients. The key to successful salvage operations, therefore, is respect for the integrity of
the ecosystem.
wood affected by wildfire and
mountain pine beetles can be
used in China.
THE FOREST INDUSTRY,
A VITAL PARTNER
Although the forest industry has a
vested interest in keeping a readily
available supply of timber, companies who rely on the forests for
their livelihood are aware that, as
good corporate citizens, they have
an obligation to put something
back into the system to benefit
future generations. Like the farmer
who derives satisfaction from sending the best produce to market,
Provinces have inaugurated prothe forest community—from the
grams to reduce the loss of comCEO of a giant firm to the logger to
mercial timber. In Quebec, a special the sawmill operator—take pride
management plan, in areas heavily
in knowing that Canada is worlddamaged by fires, insects, wind or
renowned for the quality of its
diseases, prioritizes salvaging activ- timber and wood products. Some
ities, including financial incentives. also participate in teams that find
innovative ways to promote sustainThe B.C. government recently
able forestry.
signed agreements to create
new forestry opportunities for
One such team is the Forest
11 First Nations to harvest more Engineering Research Institute
than 2 million cubic metres of
of Canada (FERIC), a research
burnt timber and more than 1
and development organization
million cubic metres of timber
funded by forest companies, the
infested by the mountain pine
federal government, the provinces
beetle. The B.C. government’s
and the Northwest Territories.
Forestry Innovation Investment is
FERIC’s Wildland Fire Operations
also cooperating with the Chinese
Research Group found that the
Academy of Forestry to study how exhaust systems of all-terrain
vehicles (ATVs) were hot enough to
ignite debris clinging to the system,
possibly sparking an open fire. In
February 2004, FERIC called for
ATV manufacturers to address
the high-heat problem, and asked
owners to regularly remove debris
from their exhaust systems and to
carry basic firefighting equipment
in their vehicles.
The vital partnership between the
forest industry and fire management
agencies has resulted in agreement
to curtail industrial operations in
times of high fire risk. Industry also
trains employees up to the standards of Level 2 firefighting crews,
so that forest company personnel,
who are often the first to arrive at a
fire, can fight it until professional
fire crews arrive.
FIRE PREVENTION
Forest fires are started in one
of two ways—by nature (usually
lightning) or by people. Humancaused fires most often start from
careless smoking or recreational
activities. Although these fires
are more common, they are
normally detected quickly and
controlled at a smaller size than
natural fires. Nevertheless, educating people on how to prevent
forest fires is a challenge.
65
crossings to those entering the
province for outdoor recreational
purposes, and utilizes the media for
public announcements.
FIRE AND COMMUNITIES
66
The FireSmart manual describes
how to prevent forest fires and
protect homes and communities in
the urban-wildland interface.
Produced by Partners in Protection
—an association of multi-level
government agencies, the forest
industry and non-governmental
organizations—this comprehensive
handbook provides knowledge, tools
Symbols, such as Smokey Bear, are the natural environment and the
and examples of how to increase
highly effective for fire prevention— challenges inherent in managing it.
public safety, decrease structure
especially for youth. Smokey Bear
The Junior Forest Warden and the
loss, and reduce expenditures for
is one of the best-known symbols
Junior Forest Ranger both emphaevacuations and fire suppression.
in North America. Few children or
size the importance and role of fire
adults in Canada have not heard
in forest management.
FireSmart is both a concept and
his forest fire prevention message.
a product. Through a web site,
Government agencies, media and Ontario uses “restricted fire zones” www.partnersinprotection.ab.ca, a
youth groups cooperate in spread- when conditions are so dry that
CD-ROM, and the distribution of
extra precautions are required. The
ing his message. The Canadian
over 10 000 paper copies, individuzones do not mean that hunting,
Forestry Association is careful
als and communities across Canada
fishing or camping are prohibited;
to note that Smokey’s campaign
and internationally have begun to
they simply mean that fires are not
is intended to reduce only the
follow FireSmart guidelines.
allowed due to dry conditions. As
number of fires caused by human
soon as the region becomes damper, The manual and web site explain
carelessness, and recognizes the
the
restrictions are lifted. Ministry how to identify and mitigate fire
place of forest fire management.
of Natural Resources posts signs risks. They provide tools to assist
In Alberta, the Sustainable Resource along the roadway, as well as in
homeowners, landscape planners
Development department offers
camping spots, lodges, gas stations and forest managers to assess
two highly successful programs
hazards and risks. City planners
and stores. The Ministry provides
for young people to learn about
information handouts at border
are offered suggestions on how to
deal with interface emergencies and
avoid tragedies. Training programs
are listed, and tips for communication with parties at risk are included.
British Columbia distributes a condensed 12-page version, the “Home
Owners FireSmart” manual.
FireSmart is expanding to include
forest landscapes. Research and
operational trials will identify how
forest management practices
(harvest scheduling, cutting, road
layouts, regeneration and stand
tending) can reduce the area
burned by unwanted wildfires and
mitigate the risk associated with
prescribed fires.
LOOKING AHEAD
Forests and forest fires have existed
harmoniously for centuries. Only
in the past 20 years have Canadians
begun to realize the importance
of forest fires and the role they
play in forest ecosystems. In those
20 years, we have also made great
strides towards sustainable
forest management.
Fuelled by sophisticated technology
and progressive research, Canada’s
forest scientists and managers
have learned a great deal about the
interaction of forests, fires and other
natural phenomena. And they are
increasingly learning how to use
this knowledge in their management
plans and on-the-ground practices.
Under a changing climate, forest
fire activity is expected to increase
in many parts of Canada, especially
the continental interior, due to longer
fire seasons, increased ignitions,
and more severe fire danger conditions due primarily to drought. This
makes Canada’s efforts to further
understand the role of fires in shaping and renewing its forests even
more urgent.
of forest ecosystems, and the role
of fire in those systems. It is also
cause for optimism that people can
continue to live and work safely in
and near Canada’s forests.
67
However, Canada is at the forefront
of forest fire research and sustainable forest management. This combination bodes well for continued
success in unlocking the secrets
68
Forest Fires: Part of Nature’s Life Cycle
M
any people believe that a forest ecosystem is static. However, an understanding of the way the
ecosystem functions over a period of several centuries or even several decades shows that forests are
dynamic systems evolving in response to the effects of disturbances such as fires and insect outbreaks.
Fires occur frequently in the Canadian boreal forest.
A flight over the boreal forest would show a mosaic
of stands of different types of trees. These range from
deciduous trees, to mixed stands of both deciduous
and coniferous trees, to stands that are totally coniferous. This forest mosaic has resulted from fires that
have occurred at different times. Fires are actually
a part of nature’s cleansing process which reduces
the number of pests and the occurrence of diseases.
Fires reduce the litter of dead and decaying leaves,
logs and needles that accumulate on the forest floor.
Another effect of fires is to reduce or eliminate the
canopy, resulting in increased sunlight that stimulates
regeneration from seeds and roots.
Fires also reset the successional clock of forest
ecosystems, the process by which one plant community is succeeded by another. The first trees to grow
after a fire are shade-intolerant, or pioneer trees. The
shade of their canopy, allows coniferous trees, which
will eventually dominate the area, to regenerate. This
is why the variation in fire occurrence and intensity is
partly responsible for the variety of forest types visible
from the air.
REGIONAL DIVERSITY
Although the Canadian boreal forest is highly susceptible
to fire, differences in the fire cycle do occur. Because
the west has a less abundant rainfall, the area burned
annually in the west is greater than in the east. In
zones that have short fire cycles (50 years or less), the
forest mosaic is largely made up of stands of pioneer,
or deciduous species. However, a zone with an intermediate fire cycle (150 years) will have a mixture of
both pioneer species and shade-tolerant, or coniferous
species. The frequency of fires is not the only factor
affecting the diversity of forest stands. Other contributing factors include climate, species availability, and
the physical set-up of the region.
A DYNAMIC FOREST
The pioneer species that most quickly regenerate in
a forest after a fire include aspen, white birch, jack
pine and lodgepole pine. These species all require
full sunlight to thrive, and they are well adapted to
recurring fires.
Aspen and birch are able to quickly re-establish
themselves through vegetative reproduction—simply
by sprouting from the stumps and roots of burned
trees. These two species are also able to re-colonize
burned sites by producing an abundance of seeds that
can be blown by the wind over long distances. Jack
and lodgepole pines depend on fire to regenerate.
Their seeds are in serotinous cones, which are protected by a waxy coating and which require the heat
from a fire to release them. Fire also produces favourable conditions for their seeds to germinate: nutrients
are released in the soil, mineral soil is exposed,
competing species are eliminated and the amount of
sunlight that reaches the forest floor is increased.
Other species, such as the black spruce, have semiserotinous cones. Black spruce may also become
established in the years following a fire, but they grow
slower in full sunlight than jack pine and aspen do.
However, if fire does not recur for more than 100 years,
the early pioneer trees die and are replaced by black
69
1
spruce saplings that have been growing in the understorey. Black spruce can persist in stands because of
its ability to sprout from roots, stems or branches—
even in shady conditions.
70
Other shade-tolerant species can become established
under the shady cover. Species such as the balsam fir,
white spruce or white cedar have no special adaptations to
fire; therefore, they must colonize a burned area from an
unburned area. These species require long periods to stage
a comeback after fire. Thus, aspen and birch are gradually replaced by balsam fir and, in some regions, by white
cedar from deciduous stands that have not been burned
in more than 150 years. Because extensive fires place
balsam fir and cedar at a disadvantage, these species are
quite rare in areas that are repeatedly severely burned or
where fires are large.
2
FIRE AND WILDLIFE
Nearly all animals inhabiting Canada’s forests have
adapted well to the regular return of wildland fire.
The evidence shows that fires do not completely
destroy wildlife populations since most animals are
able to avoid fires by burrowing, running or flying away,
or escaping into water. The usual victims of forest fires
are nestlings or the very young. Although this is regrettable, it is a fact of nature. Fire can also be detrimental to endangered species; an example is the woodland
caribou which like to feed on old-growth tree lichen.
A positive after-effect of fire is that nutrients are more
abundant and accessible to vegetation, at least for a
certain time; this produces conditions favourable for
plant growth. In addition, within a few days, burned
timber attracts beetles that in turn attract birds.
3
W
hen fire kills trees, the threat from insects
or diseases in the forest is reduced. Fire
reduces the forest canopy, and the increased
sunlight on the forest floor stimulates regeneration from seeds and roots. In the first year after
the fire, trees are rapidly re-established on the
4
5
For example, the black-backed woodpecker is very
abundant in recently burned stands, but quite rare in
older stands. Insects also attract omnivorous animals,
such as the bear, fox, badger, skunk and other species.
This is the way that biodiversity is re-established in a
burned-over area. New growth in the recently burned
forest also attracts grazers, such as deer and moose,
which feed on the tender shoots of vegetation.
WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?
A sustainable forest management approach advocates
preserving ecosystem diversity to conserve the habitat
of the majority of living organisms. Knowledge of natural
dynamics associated with forest fires and other disturbances is essential to implementing such an approach.
Even though Canada has excellent systems for protecting
forests from fire, it is impossible to completely eliminate
forest fires from many ecosystems. Understanding
forest fires will allow us to use their positive effects for
forest management.
6
7
site—this is evident by the vigorous growth of
the aspen root suckers. In addition, the remaining
burned timber attracts a number of beetles, which
serve as food for birds. Within 50 years of a forest
fire, the forest is mainly composed of deciduous
trees and their canopy provides shade for the
understory. One hundred years after the fire, the
dominant trees are still deciduous, but coniferous
trees are growing in the understory. At 150 years
after the fire, the forest is dominated by coniferous species that were able to establish themselves
in the shade.
This photo sequence shows:
1) A fire
2) The regrowth of aspen,
1 year after fire
3) Burned tree with black-backed woodpecker,
1 year after fire
4) A 50-year stand
5) A 100-year stand
6) 150 years of growth
7) Old-growth forest (with gap dynamics)
71
Things Are Heating Up with Climate Change
F
ire has been an important factor in the Canadian forest ecosystem since the last Ice Age. This is particularly true in Canada’s vast boreal forest region, where fire is critical to the very existence of primary
boreal species such as pine, spruce and aspen and in shaping landscape diversity.
INTERACTIONS BETWEEN CLIMATE, WEATHER
AND FIRE
Climate—the long-term average of weather conditions—and associated day-to-day weather are
dynamic and constantly changing. Climate and
weather conditions are influenced by natural and
human forces such as changes in the earth’s orbit,
changes in solar output, and changes in atmospheric
gas composition, primarily as a result of greenhouse
gases released by human activities. In Canada, weather
is the most important natural factor that influences
forest fires. Day-to-day weather causes lightning ignitions, determines the moisture content of trees and of
woody debris on the forest floor (that serve as fuel) and
can fan fires that are already burning. Hot, dry and
windy conditions, continued over lengthy periods, are
very conducive to fire activity.
72
While weather and climate affect fire activity, fire may
also influence climate. Climate change may cause
more fire, which then releases more carbon from the
forest; this increase in atmospheric greenhouse gas
concentrations may contribute to further climate
change. In addition, evidence indicates that smoke
reduces precipitation and increases the likelihood
that lightning will ignite fires. This mutual feedback
appears to be a global phenomenon. In Siberia, for
example, more than 10 million hectares have burned
annually in recent years. However, natural factors will
limit a potentially runaway scenario. More fire will also
change the vegetation. For example, in some parts of
Canada’s forests, early successional deciduous trees
will help to slow fire movement because they do not
burn as quickly as later successional coniferous trees.
EFFECTS ON CARBON DYNAMICS
Climate change will also influence carbon dynamics
(the fluctuation and distribution of carbon in different
parts of the ecosystem) of the forest through changes
in fire activity. In addition to fire, other natural
disturbances—such as insects and disease—may cause
Canada’s forests to release rather than trap carbon.
Over the last two decades, forest fires have burned an
average of two to three million hectares annually in
Canada—the equivalent of half the size of Nova Scotia
burning every year. The method through which fires
release carbon is through direct combustion emissions.
Direct combustion occurs when the biomass (living or
dead organic matter in the ecosystem) is engulfed in
flames during a fire or through smouldering.
Over the last 40 years, this has accounted for almost
20 percent of the amount of carbon released through
fossil fuel emissions in Canada. In addition to the
direct combustion losses of carbon, vegetation killed
by fire decomposes, causing additional loss of carbon
from the forest. The amount of carbon that the forest
normally takes up is also reduced during the first few
years following fire because the new, young vegetation
stores less carbon than a more mature forest. The
forest carbon dynamics following fire are less well
known than the combustion losses, but are likely of
similar importance.
Figure 1. Changes to the
Seasonal Severity Rating
Decrease (<0.8)
No change (0.8–1.2)
Increase (1.2–2.0)
Large Increase (>2.0)
(SSR) for fire in Canada for
2080-2100 scenarios compared to the present. The
SSR reflects the difficulty
of controlling fire, based
on weather conditions;
the higher values indicate
greater difficulty. Regions
where the models disagree
are uncertain and are
marked as “no change.”
LOOKING INTO THE 21ST CENTURY
How will climate change influence forest fires in the
21st century? Estimates from global circulation models
and regional climate models suggest that much of
Canada will experience more fire in the 21st century. In
general, there will be more periods of weather conducive to forest fires—hot, dry and windy. Based on the
present situation and our climate projections, the best
estimates to date are that by the end of the 21st century,
the area burned annually could double. This change
will not likely be evenly distributed across the country;
some areas may experience less fire, at least temporarily, because of increases in precipitation.
Some projections of the Seasonal Severity Rating (SSR)
for Canada are shown in Figure 1. Since SSR often
correlates well with the area burned, this map illustrates what could happen in the future. Increases in
severity and difficulty in controlling fire are expected
throughout much of the boreal forest, the area of
Canada currently experiencing the most fire. Recent
research also suggests a possible lengthening of the
fire season in most areas, increases in fire severity and
intensity, and increases in both people-caused and
lightning ignitions throughout the 21st century. Canadians who live and work in the forest will, therefore,
be at a greater risk from forest fires, as will communities and infrastructure in forested regions.
Future research is aimed at refining these climate
change estimates of fire activity using dynamic models
of fire and landscape vegetation. Also helpful will be
models of the role of fire management and fire suppression activities.
73
Disturbances and Renewal in the Forest
D
isturbances are an essential part of forest renewal. Typically, these disturbances are large, uncontrolled fires or insect outbreaks. Both types of disturbances play major roles in determining the
biological, structural and landscape diversity of Canada’s forests. However, the intensity and impacts of
these two perturbations differ considerably.
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN FIRE AND
INSECT OUTBREAKS
Most forest fires cause little damage, but 3 percent
of the fires that occur cause about 97 percent of the
damage. Fires can damage all the trees in a stand,
usually within days or weeks.
By contrast, insect outbreaks are generally extensive.
Their occurrence is more cyclical than fires, and
they attack large areas at the same time. In addition,
insects often attack only specific host trees and the
damage is developed over a period of years. Even host
trees that are not killed usually experience reduced
growth. Yet it is often difficult to find the insects that
caused the damage between outbreaks.
These differences between fires and insect outbreaks
explain, in part, their different impacts on forest
structure and diversity. As an example of their intensity and impacts, the 2003 fires in British Columbia
burned an estimated 265 373 hectares; by contrast,
in the last four years the mountain pine beetle killed
trees over a cumulative area of 4.2 million hectares.
CHANGES IN THE FOREST
74
Forest ecosystems experience repeated successional
cycles of establishment, development and renewal.
During each cycle, the sequence moves from shortlived herbs and grasses to shrubs, to fast-growing,
shade-intolerant trees, and eventually—as a closed
forest canopy is established—to slow-growing, shadetolerant trees. Insect outbreaks and fires interrupt
this sequence naturally by shifting the forest towards
younger age plants and the earlier successional stages.
In contrast to extensive fires, some insect outbreaks
open gaps in the forest canopy, permitting the development of multi-aged stands that are typical of old-growth
forests. Both of these disturbances change the physical
structure of stands by removing weakened and less
competitive trees. While dead trees may become fuel,
they may also serve as habitat for a variety of plant
species, vertebrates, fungi and insects that are essential for the proper functioning of forests.
Most insects are beneficial. However, several dozen
are considered to be pests because they interfere, or
compete, with forest growth and productivity. Fire,
too, has long been considered a competitor of the
forest industry. Substantial effort—in terms of money,
research and human resources—has been expended
to suppress both fire and pest populations in situations
where productive forests and other values were at
risk. Unfortunately, these suppression activities have
produced some unforeseen consequences. In some
areas, fire control has allowed succession to proceed
without interruption until much of the landscape is
covered with a preponderance of mature forest stands.
These stands may be particularly vulnerable to major
outbreaks of forest insects. Fire control sometimes
also interferes with other beneficial processes: fires
regulate some insect and disease outbreaks, and they
limit susceptible groups of forest plants. Thus fires
contribute to the overall health and productivity of
many forested ecosystems.
An ecosystem feature of fire- and insect-killed vegetation is that nutrients recycle faster than they do in
undisturbed forests. This process releases accumulations of biomass, energy and nutrients into the system.
The resources produced are exploited by plant species
that invade the site and launch another successional
sequence. In addition, standing dead timber attracts
beetles and other insects that initiate the breakdown
of debris to release nutrients that can encourage
new growth. These insects also attract the birds and
mammals that feed on them, helping to re-colonize
disturbed areas that would have been abandoned by
wildlife before or during the disturbance.
INCREASING UNDERSTANDING IS KEY
Several tools are available to
protect people, property,
and productive forests
from uncontrolled and
catastrophic forest
disturbances. Pests
can be controlled
through the
increased
use of environmentally
friendly procedures, such as
partial cutting.
Prescribed
burning
may help
to reduce
the risk
of fires
and future insect outbreaks. An understanding of
fire and pest behaviour is essential to help manage
Canada’s forest systems. We need to know how
outbreaks start and spread, their immediate impacts,
and the long-term socio-economic and environmental
consequences of either controlling them or allowing
them to run their course.
Climate change presents a particular challenge to this
understanding. The effects of climate change on the
damage patterns caused by fire and insect populations
are not yet understood. This knowledge gap will directly
affect depletion forecasts, hazard rating procedures
and long-term planning for harvest queues, ecological
values and control requirements. For example, because
the potential for fire often increases in stands after
insect attack, uncertainties in future insect damage
patterns magnify uncertainties in future fire frequencies,
intensities and extent.
Many Canadians value wild, pristine and unmanaged
landscapes. At the same time, however, the country
derives considerable wealth from forests. Currently,
the combined annual depletion from pests and fires
of Canadian forests’ productive capacity is larger
than annual harvests of forest products. This dilemma
could accelerate our search for a more complete
understanding of how disturbances affect our forests.
Canada must seek a balance between encouraging
productive forests, maintaining wilderness areas, and
supporting thriving communities near forests.
Top left: forest tent
caterpillar
Top right: spruce
budworm
75
Right: mountain
pine beetle
For the
RECORD
C
anadians have a high regard for forests, and we have a natural interest in keeping them healthy and abundant. In recent years, Canadian newspaper articles and television and radio broadcasts have focused on controversial issues related to our forests and forest management practices. Important facts have been presented and
spirited public discussions have ensued. But media coverage has not always looked into these issues in depth,
and discussions have not always been based on knowledge necessary for complete understanding. Consequently,
media attention and public response may inadvertently have spawned various myths and misperceptions.
This section of the report aims to clear up some of these misunderstandings. Canadians need to know that
the organizations responsible for forest management policies and practices are dealing with our finest
resources in a careful and responsible manner. To explain current knowledge and handling of two complex,
often misunderstood and sometimes controversial issues, this section records explanations from specialists
in the field.
Genetically modified plants constitute one area where misunderstandings may have arisen due to incomplete
understanding of the complex issues involved. Dr. Ariane Plourde is Research Director of Forest Biology at
the Canadian Forest Service’s Laurentian Forestry Centre. We asked her about genetically modified trees:
“Do genetically modified trees pose a threat
to our forests and the environment?”
Dr. Plourde’s response follows:
While one can appreciate people’s concern over the
use of genetically modified trees, there is insufficient
evidence at this time to suggest that genetically
modified trees pose a threat to Canada’s forests or the
environment. Genetic engineering research on trees is
in the early stages and there are no commercial genetically modified forest plantations in Canada.
76
In fact, the Canadian Forest Service is doing targeted
research on the potential effects of genetically
modified trees to ensure that the public’s concerns
are addressed. Research scientists are examining the
impacts of genetically modified trees on the diversity
of populations of the same and other species, as well
as the direct or indirect impacts on other organisms.
These effects are being studied through four selfcontained and highly controlled genetically modified
trees field trials in Quebec. All four field trials are
subjected to careful scrutiny of disposal of material and
land use following field tests, and are monitored for
long-term containment of genetic material. Research is
also being conducted on persistence and degradation of
the introduced DNA segments over time. This research
will provide support for the development of scientifically
sound regulatory guidelines in Canada.
To protect the surrounding area, the trial site is
clearly delineated and guard rows of non-modified
trees have been established. Moreover, the site is
separated by a buffer zone of at least 10 metres from
other trees of related species. Flowering is rigorously
monitored and precautions are taken each year to
prevent pollen and seeds from being released into the
environment. This field study will help answer many
environmental questions.
Five targeted research areas of applied biotechnology are being studied by the Canadian Forest Service.
These include identifying genetically superior trees
and genetic diversity; regenerating trees through tissue
culture, including somatic embryogenesis (a form of
tree propagation); improving trees through genetic
engineering; protecting forests using biological control
methods, including genetically engineered insect
viruses; and assessing environmental impacts of biotechnology-derived products.
CFS researchers are conducting studies on gene traits
of particular interest: control of resistance to insects
and disease, resistance to abiotic stresses like drought,
and lignin content. (Lignin, a component of tree cells
that gives rigidity to the plant, is closely associated
with cellulose and must be dissolved in the process of
paper production.) Other genes of public interest are
the regulatory genes, such as those involved in the
expression of traits in different parts of the trees over
time. A new science called functional genomics will
help to explain why certain trees exhibit particular
traits and others do not, and will assist in selecting
superior genotypes. In the future, it may be possible
to switch on insect- or disease-resistant genes that
are naturally silent in certain tree species. Genetically modified trees may also form an integral part of
Canada’s solution to the potentially devastating effects
of foreign invasive insects and diseases.
77
C
learcutting is another area of forest management that is often misunderstood. In the past several
decades we have seen images in the media of once lush forested areas that have been laid waste, and
many Canadians have become concerned about how Canada’s natural forests are being harvested. To provide
clarity with regard to clearcutting, we asked Hans Ottens, Coordinator of Forestry Practices in the Science
Programs of CFS:
“Is clearcutting and acceptable forestry practice?”
“Is clearcutting an acceptable forestry practice?”
This was his response to our question:
It is difficult to provide a clearly positive answer,
because this question often evokes images of barren
wastelands, based on media coverage. There is no
denying it—areas that have been clearcut are unattractive. And many of the concerns Canadians have
voiced over the years relate to very large clearcuts
which have sometimes resulted in soil erosion, landslides or inadequate natural reforestation. However,
these situations are exceptions.
78
Today natural resource managers pay a great deal of
attention to the aesthetic and environmental impacts
of clearcutting. Through advanced clearcutting practices and techniques, they attempt to emulate natural
disturbances such as wildfire and blowdown. This
kind of modified clearcutting has become an integral
part of Canada’s sustainable forest management. For
example, the Ontario government’s guideline, The
Forest Management Guide for Natural Disturbance
Pattern Emulation, advises forest managers on how
to size and arrange harvest areas and regeneration
activities to simulate the way in which natural fire
disturbs the forest.
Selecting an appropriate harvesting practice is
important. The forest manager must balance the
sustainability of social, economic and environmental
elements. Decreasing availability of commercial wood,
increasing demands for recreational and non-timber
values, dramatic increase in scientific knowledge and
ecological awareness, and livelihood of rural communities often result in competing interests.
From a forest management perspective, clearcutting is one of two main silvicultural systems aimed
at maintaining even-aged forests. The other is the
Shelterwood System, used for species of intermediate shade tolerance like white pine and red oak.
Under even-aged systems, an entire forest (or a
component thereof) is harvested in a single operation.
A third, the Selection Silvicultural System, used
in Canada and around the world, is employed to
maintain uneven-aged forests.
Of the three systems, clearcutting remains the dominant
forest operation for about 85 percent of the million or
so hectares harvested in Canada annually. However,
regeneration treatments are part of this system: artificial regeneration, such as tree planting and seeding,
and natural regeneration, where seed and cones in
logging debris, seed trees and standing timber are left
to flourish naturally.
In boreal conifer forests, clearcutting is usually the
most appropriate harvesting technique. Here clearcutting comes closest to mimicking natural disturbances.
In the more southerly mixed-wood and hardwood
forests, some form of selection or partial harvesting
may be preferred, because it comes closer to natural
disturbance effects common in these sorts of forests.
The forests we now have are the result of human and
natural influences, and proper management of forests
with even-aged stands can prevent catastrophic fire or
insect outbreaks.
So is clearcutting an acceptable forestry practice?
It all depends on the type of forest you are working
with. Clearcutting is one method used by professional
foresters to harvest, salvage and renew most types of
Canadian forest. Where uneven-aged management
is appropriate, increasingly selection silviculture is
practised. But Canada continues to refine its harvesting and tending practices, guided by the principles
of sustainable development, so that all systems will
have positive effects for all forest stakeholders.
79
“
80
What LESSONS did you learn from dealing with the fire situation in
Kelowna this summer?
What IMPROVEMENTS would you
make to address future fires?
Did the situation create any new OPPORTUNITIES for you or
the community?
”
It started with lightning. Early on August 16, 2003, a bolt ignited in Okanagan Mountain
Provincial Park, south of Kelowna. As the fire spread, it became a rank six firestorm, the highest
possible level. In just four days, the fire had destroyed the park, jumped a 50-metre-wide
fireguard and was approaching Kelowna. Nearly 30 000 Kelowna residents were eventually
evacuated. In one night alone, 223 houses were lost.
The Kelowna blaze, which consumed homes and property well into September, was the most
destructive wildfire in B.C.’s recent history. Can we salvage anything from such destruction?
To find out, we asked fire experts, emergency response staff, firefighters and residents to share
their views on lessons learned, recommendations and opportunities arising from the firestorm.
FIRE EXPERTS
Peter Fuglem
Director, Protection Branch, B.C. Ministry of Forests.
Tim Lynham
Forest Fire Research Officer, Canadian Forest Service—came from Ontario to relieve fire analysts
at the Kamloops Regional Fire Centre.
Judi Beck
Fire Behaviour Specialist, B.C. Ministry of Forests—monitored the Kelowna fire.
“
W
ith hundreds of wildfires burning throughout British Columbia last summer, many of them serious
and near populated areas, the province’s firefighting resources were stretched to the limit. The
situation was eye-opening for Peter Fuglem. “The provincial forest service had always viewed years like
1985 as the worst-case scenario. But in 2003, we found that things could be much worse. The drought
was more severe and widespread, and the effort we had to expend on forest fires was more than twice
that of 1985.” This has changed how the ministry views the future. “Before this summer, we thought we
had a sufficient plan for contingency resources. But we know now that we have to be ready for something much bigger and worse.”
”
In spite of the challenging conditions, says Mr. Fuglem, the province, with help from across the country,
responded extremely well. “The assistance from others went above and beyond our expectations. It’s a
valuable lesson for anyone in such a situation in the future—Canada is the kind of country where we
can count on each other to help out.”
Much assistance was sent B.C.’s way by the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC) (see text
box on page 64). Based in Winnipeg and funded by the provinces, territories and federal government,
81
the CIFFC monitors wildfires across Canada
and shifts firefighting resources accordingly.
Says Tim Lynham, “The summer of 2003
was a big test for this resource-sharing
arrangement. Not only was the situation
in B.C. critical, but there were major fires
in other parts of the country at the same
time. With this arrangement, resources
were shifted where they were needed and
were used effectively.” In fact, the CIFFC
arranged for Mr. Lynham to help out in B.C.
But is the CIFFC enough? “The province
must have a larger pool of contingency
resources available for managing forest fires,”
says Peter Fuglem. “We were lucky this
year that firefighting resources in other provinces, except for Alberta, were not terribly busy when our
fires struck. But what happens if different regions are hit at the same time?” B.C. must look at alternatives,
he says, including firefighting resources available from industry.
Tim Lynham at the Great Lakes Forestry Centre,
Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario
Contingency planning is even more important because of current climatic patterns, according to Mr. Lynham.
“Canada should be prepared for further serious wildfire outbreaks in the future. If climate change continues to bring warmer, drier weather, there is a greater probability that a lightning strike or a dropped
cigarette will actually start a fire.”
The Kelowna fire’s scope meant the community had an insatiable appetite for information, according to
Dr. Judi Beck, who kept fire prediction information flowing throughout the incident. “Having a B.C. forest
service liaison officer in the emergency centre made my job easier,” she says. Unlike with past fires,
when she had to attend media briefings herself, the liaison officer handled this function, translating her
technical information into lay terms and making sure the media and emergency centre staff were up to
date. This left Dr. Beck free to concentrate on fire forecasting.
“
”
All three fire experts see an upside to the province’s experience this summer. Says Tim Lynham,
“The B.C. fires should open the door to more study and discussion of using prescribed fires to clear
out deadwood and other fuel and to regenerate forests, especially in interface areas” (where forests meet
populated areas).
82
Peter Fuglem agrees that B.C. must look seriously at fuel management. Historically, he explains,
Okanagan forests were subject to frequent low-intensity fires. But now, with the area a popular viewscape,
Judi Beck discussing fire behaviour forecasts with the Fire Prevention and Risk Management team
outside the Kelowna Fire Hall
fire suppression has caused fuel to build up. “We’ve done fuel management around many communities
to one level or another,” he says, “but we need to keep moving ahead. Everyone with a land management
role, including landowners, has a responsibility here.”
Dr. Beck and Mr. Lynham agree that landowners play a key role in fire safety. Both would like to see
building codes, community plans and even insurance companies take more account of wildfire mitigation. According to Dr. Beck, forensic investigation since the fire has unearthed a number of measures
that could make environments more fire-resistant, including limiting cedar shake roofs and designing
breaks in cedar fencing and plantings, which can serve as connective wicks for fire.
“People have to do things, as individuals and as communities, to make their areas more fire-safe,” says
Peter Fuglem. “They have to be prepared. The fires in B.C. this summer, reinforced by the intense fires
in California, should change people’s thinking.”
83
EMERGENCY RESPONSE
Sid LeBeau
Assistant Chief, Kelowna Fire Department—administers
the Kelowna/Central Okanagan regional emergency plan.
Ron Mattiussi
City of Kelowna—was Manager of the Emergency Operations Centre.
Karen Cairns
City of Kelowna—was Public Information Director at the
Emergency Operations Centre.
O
nce the fire broke out, officials in Kelowna and the Central
Okanagan Regional District set up the Emergency Operations Centre (EOC). About three dozen people staffed the
centre, with others contributing as needed.
Ron Mattiussi at a press conference
All three emergency response officials stressed that it was immensely valuable to have a regional emergency
plan in place already. The plan worked well because regular practice and drills are an essential part of
it—a part that really paid off, say those on the scene. “Everyone in the EOC worked together; everyone
was focused,” says Sid LeBeau. “There were people working there who had been evacuated from their
homes, one who had lost a home. It didn’t matter.”
Mr. LeBeau says that because the region’s emergency plan is compatible with the B.C. Emergency
Response Management System, it was easy to communicate with provincial agencies, a big advantage
in such a crisis. But he adds that, while municipalities in B.C. are required to adopt an emergency plan,
regional districts aren’t. He would recommend that all regional districts have a plan which is compatible
with the province’s.
Early on, emergency staff made a discovery: the digital map systems for Central Okanagan Regional
District didn’t mesh with those for Kelowna. Two teams of experts had to quickly integrate the two systems
to help with evacuations, should they become necessary. “Emergencies don’t respect boundaries,” says
Ron Mattiussi. “Quality, up-to-date mapping is crucial for so many things—good on-the-ground
reconnaissance, orderly evacuation, recovery from the emergency. Getting people out fast depends on
good mapping.” Karen Cairns adds, “Municipalities and the regional districts or counties next to them
have to make sure their mapping systems are compatible before an emergency like this arises.”
84
Emergency staff also learned that such a large-scale disaster requires a constant supply of people. “We
were in emergency mode for about three weeks,” says Mr. Mattiussi. “That’s a very long time to be in a
state of constant readiness.” Sid LeBeau adds, “It’s important to line up alternates.”
One of the EOC’s main roles was updating the public about the fire. According to Karen Cairns, cooperation with the media was key to keeping the community informed and calm. The media coverage was
aided tremendously, she says, by the willingness of key officials like the EOC manager and the fire
chief to be available for media interviews. “At a time like this, the public wants, and deserves, to hear
from the people in charge,” Ms. Cairns says. She suggests that key emergency officials get training if
they are uncomfortable speaking to the media.
Coordination between municipal and provincial jurisdictions was a vital area, according to the interviewees. Ron Mattiussi said that while the municipal and provincial firefighters both performed well,
the 350 fires raging simultaneously stretched provincial resources and made on-the-ground coordination difficult.
“
”
Did this devastating fire create any opportunities? Yes, says Sid LeBeau. “For the Kelowna Fire
Department, there’s an opportunity to go around to other communities that haven’t dealt with such an
experience and train them on handling forest fires of this magnitude.”
Ron Mattiussi thinks communities can learn more about fire mitigation and homeowners can be more
proactive themselves. People who live in forested areas should take steps to lessen fire risks. Trees
should be well spaced and pine cones, branches and needles should be regularly removed.
FIREFIGHTERS
Brian Kempf
B.C. Ministry of Forests, Incident Commander, Provincial Fire
Management Team—oversaw provincial forest firefighters in
the area.
Gerry Zimmermann
Chief, Kelowna Fire Department.
Shawn O’Reilly
Station Officer, Kelowna Fire Department.
A
s the Kelowna firestorm grew, hundreds of firefighters—municipal
and provincial alike—came from across the province and the
country to combat the blaze.
For Brian Kempf, the biggest lesson was the importance of
teamwork: “With the number of agencies and people involved in
Kelowna, I learned firsthand how necessary it is.” The emergency
team, which exceeded 1300 at one point, was one of the largest Mr.
Kempf ever worked with, and he praised their efforts. The team
Fire Chief Gerry Zimmerman
85
worked under the Incident Command System
(ICS), which B.C. adopted a number of years
ago. Says Mr. Kempf, “Because the personnel involved were all familiar with the ICS,
they used common terminology and understood the command structure, which made it
easier for people from different jurisdictions
to work together.”
Gerry Zimmermann agrees that the firefighters
worked well together, but he is less positive
about the coordination between government
agencies. “It was unclear to the Kelowna
firefighters just which of the three agencies
present was actually in charge—the B.C.
Brian Kempf (far left) taking a well-earned break
Fire Commissioner’s office; the B.C. Forest
with his colleagues
Service, which was in charge of the forested
areas; or Provincial Emergency Preparedness.”
Mr. Zimmermann sees value in a provincial agency taking charge in a large fire, but says it’s crucial to
decide which one beforehand so that command structures are clear.
For Brian Kempf, the sheer size and intensity of the fire was a learning experience. Shawn O’Reilly,
who led municipal crews on the ground, agrees. “At one point, we were pumping thousands of gallons of
water onto that fire and it had no impact. In the 28 years I’ve been a career firefighter, I’ve never seen
anything like it.”
Mr. O’Reilly still wonders what might have happened
had Kelowna firefighters been able to help sooner. For
the first couple of days, while the fire was in the forest
and thus under provincial jurisdiction, the municipal
crews were not allowed to fight the blaze.
86
Brian Kempf agrees in theory that forestry and structural firefighters could collaborate sooner, but he’s not
sure the amount of training required would be worth
it. “We have different training, different equipment,
different firefighting techniques,” he says. Mr. O’Reilly
thinks the firestorm allowed firefighters to bridge those
differences. “Really, we learned from each other,” he
Shawn O’Reilly being interviewed by the press
“
says. “Our structural firefighters had a chance to learn how to go after a forest fire. And the forestry
firefighters had a chance to learn what our equipment can do.”
Mr. O’Reilly and Mr. Kempf also discovered how much the community appreciated their efforts to save
land and homes. Both describe the outpouring of support from citizens who brought firefighters food and
water and lined the roads with thank-you signs. Gerry Zimmermann also emphasizes the community spirit
during the fire. He thinks it helped that residents got all the news, including whether they had lost their
homes, as quickly as possible. “I can’t stress enough the importance of getting the community behind you
in an emergency like this one,” he says. “Without that, you’re fighting more fronts than just the fire itself.”
”
For Mr. Kempf, one positive outcome is that residents are thinking more about fuel management and
fire safety. “Around B.C., people have talked about fuel management for a long time, but most haven’t
actually bought into the program. People worry about prescribed fire getting out of control and they
don’t want the smoke around their communities. But now, people may think differently.”
RESIDENTS
Denis Hostland
lost his 3300-square-foot home in the firestorm.
Murray Roed’s
house was one of dozens to burn in the Crawford Estates
subdivision.
Kevin and Alisa Brownlee
lost their 18-month-old dream home in Kettle Valley.
D
enis Hostland’s biggest lesson concerns forest management
in B.C. Okanagan Mountain Provincial Park, where the fire
started, is a Class A park with no forest management. In recent years, says Mr. Hostland, especially
after the mountain pine beetle infestation, the province was warned by forest companies and its own staff
to clear out the deadwood and other fuel. “People were telling the province that the park was a tinderbox,
that if a match was dropped, that would be it. The province had ample opportunity to do something about
the situation, but it didn’t.”
Denis Hostland
Mr. Hostland adds, “The province has been pandering to environmental groups that say the park
should remain in its natural state. But ironically, the province’s decision to hide behind the Class A
designation and preserve the park in its natural state, instead of intervening and managing it, has
caused the park’s destruction.”
Murray Roed agrees. “To all tree lovers out there, I can only say look at what happened to us. If our
forest companies could have operated freely, and if the provincial government had allowed forest
87
management in Okanagan Mountain
Park, as was recommended many times,
life here would be different.” Mr. Roed
also questions Kelowna: “There has
been no urban forest management that I
know of in the city, except that done by
power and telephone companies along
their right-of-ways. I hope that now this
issue will be addressed.”
What was the biggest lesson for Kevin
and Alisa Brownlee? “Review your
insurance,” says Kevin. “When we had
to cost everything for replacement, we
realized we were way underinsured.”
The same realization hit the Hostlands
and the Roeds, whose contents weren’t
adequately covered.
The Brownlees, whose house burned
despite being built to the most recent
fire standards, also say they didn’t take
the fire seriously enough at first. Murray
The Brownlees and their new home, under construction
Roed and Denis Hostland say the same.
“Next time I wouldn’t be so naive,” says
Mr. Hostland. “My wife and I left for Vancouver before our area was under evacuation, and my wife
packed some photos just in case. I remember laughing, saying ‘We have the second largest population in
the area outside Vancouver. They’re not going to let us burn.’ We lost everything, except for those photos
she’d packed. I thought it couldn’t happen to us. The truth is, it can happen to anybody.”
It can even happen to people whose homes are not surrounded by trees, say the Brownlees. “It’s important for people to know that we don’t live in the forest,” says Kevin. “We live half a kilometre away, in
a developed community where there are only a few small trees planted along the sidewalks.” Alisa’s
parents also lost their home, which was well away from the treeline.
88
The Brownlees and Denis Hostland commend Kelowna firefighters for trying to save homes from a
fire that was out of control. Says Mr. Hostland, “They did a spectacular job under horrendous circumstances. The city couldn’t get involved until the fire hit the Kelowna boundaries, and by then it was a
wild animal.”
Murray Roed disagrees. “The city fire department lacked an effective contingency plan to protect highly
vulnerable localities like Crawford Estates, which was clearly in the line of fire for at least a week before
its partial destruction. In my opinion, fire management lacked vision.” Mr. Roed, a geological consultant
in the process of mapping Okanagan Mountain Park until the fire destroyed his files and photos, tells
Canadians, “If you live in a forest fringe zone, press city, regional and other governments to develop
management and emergency plans.”
“
All four residents were quick to praise the hundreds of emergency volunteers and local residents who
helped them through their loss. Mr. Roed singles out the evacuation crews for working efficiently without
loss of life. Mr. Hostland says the caring volunteers in the fire’s aftermath made a huge difference to his
ability to cope. “People sure came together,” says Alisa Brownlee. “It taught us that ‘love thy neighbour’
really means something.”
CONCLUSION
F
rom coast to coast, Canadians
watched with horror and sympathy
as Kelowna was assaulted by fire.
But we can take away from this
disaster far more than images of
devastation. The need to adopt and
practise emergency plans, to share
and coordinate resources from different jurisdictions, to handle public
information properly, to improve fuel
management and fire safety, to review
fire insurance and take fire threats
seriously—these are valuable lessons
for all Canadians, especially those
near forested areas.
”
A water bomber taking off from a lake with its precious cargo
We can also learn from the human side of this disaster. Thanks to the volunteers who flocked to help,
the citizens who opened their homes, the individuals who gave their all to fight the fire and manage the
emergency, no matter how quickly the Kelowna fire destroyed property, something meaningful was
rebuilt in its wake.
89
GLOSSARY
ABIOTIC STRESS
Stress induced by the non-living component of the environment.
BLOWDOWN
Tree or trees felled or broken off by wind.
BOREAL FOREST
One of the three main forest zones in the world located in northern regions
and is characterized by the predominance of conifers.
CLIMATE CHANGE
An alteration in measured quantities (e.g., precipitation, temperature,
radiation, wind and cloudiness) within the climate system that departs
significantly from previous average conditions and is seen to endure,
bringing about corresponding changes in ecosystems and socioeconomic
activity.
COMMERCIAL FOREST
Forest land that is able to grow commercial timber within an acceptable time
frame and is designated for such a purpose.
CROWN FIRE
A fire that advances through the crown fuel layer, the upper part of the tree
bearing live branches and foliage.
DUFF LAYER
A general term referring to the litter and humus layers of the forest floor.
ECOSYSTEM
A dynamic system of plants, animals and other organisms, together with the
non-living components of the environment, functioning as an interdependent
unit.
EVEN-AGED
Of a forest stand or forest type in which relatively small age differences exist
between individual trees (usually 10 to 20 years).
FUNCTIONAL GENOMICS
Predicting biological function of genes and proteins from their primary
sequence.
GAP DYNAMICS
The change in space and time in the pattern, frequency, size, and
successional processes of forest canopy gaps caused by the fall or death of
one or more canopy trees.
GENOTYPE
An individual hereditary constitution derived from its parents and forming
a unique combination of genes; sometimes referring to trees having similar
genetic constitutions with regard to certain common, identifiable, genetic
characteristics, expressed in distinctive features.
GREENHOUSE GASES
Those gases, such as water vapour, carbon dioxide, tropospheric ozone,
nitrous oxide and methane, that are transparent to solar radiation but
opaque to longwave radiation. Their action is similar to that of glass in a
greenhouse.
HARDWOOD (DECIDUOUS TREE)
Tree whose leaves are not persistent and fall off at the end of a defined
growing season or during a period of temperature or moisture stress.
HOLISTIC APPROACH
Broad brush approach based on a theory according to which a whole cannot
be analyzed without considering the sum of its parts or reduced to discrete
elements.
LADDER FUELS
Fuels that provide vertical continuity between the surface fuels and crown
fuels in a forest stand, thus contributing to the ease of torching and
crowning, e.g., tall shrubs, small-sized trees, bark flakes, tree lichens.
90
MOP-UP (FIRE)
The act of extinguishing a fire after it has been brought under control.
NON-TIMBER FOREST PRODUCTS
Any commodity obtained from the forest that does not necessitate
harvesting trees. Includes game animals, fur-bearers, nuts and seeds, berries,
mushrooms, oils, foliage, medicinal plants, peat and fuelwood, forage, etc.
PRESCRIBED BURNING
The knowledgeable application of fire to a specific land area to accomplish
predetermined forest management or other land use objectives.
SEED TREE (METHOD)
A tree left standing for the sole or primary purpose of providing seed.
A method of regenerating a forest stand that involves removing all of the
trees from an area in a single cut, except for a small number of seed-bearing
trees. The objective is to create an even-aged stand.
SLASH BURNING
Intentional burning of debris resulting from timber harvesting operations,
where the fuel has not been piled or windrowed, allowing the fire to spread
freely over the entire harvested area.
SMOULDERING FIRE
A fire burning without flame and barely spreading.
SOFTWOOD
Cone-bearing tree with needles or scale-like leaves that is the predominant
tree type in coniferous forests.
STAND
A continuous group of trees sufficiently uniform in age-class distribution,
composition and structure, and growing on a site of sufficiently uniform
quality, to be a distinguishable unit.
SUCCESSION
Changes in species composition in an ecosystem over time, often in a
predictable order.
SUSTAINABLE FOREST
MANAGEMENT
Management that maintains and enhances the long-term health of forest
ecosystems for the benefit of all living things while providing environmental,
economic, social and cultural opportunities for present and future
generations.
UNDERSTOREY
The lower level of vegetation in a forest. Usually formed by ground
vegetation (mosses, herbs and lichens), herbs and shrubs, but may also
include subdominant trees.
UNEVEN-AGED
A stand with trees of three or more distinct age classes, either intimately
mixed or in small groups.
VALUE-ADDED PRODUCT
Adding value to a product by further processing it. Examples of value-added
wood products include joinery stock, windows, doors, kitchen cabinets,
flooring and mouldings. Value-added pulp and paper products include such
items as packaging, diapers, coated papers, tissue, business papers and
stationery, and other consumer paper products.
WATER BOMBING
The act of dropping suppressants (water or short-term retardant) on a
wildfire from an aircraft in flight.
WATERSHED
The area drained by an underground or surface stream, or by a system
of streams.
91
CONTACTS
The following is a list of organizations that can provide you with additional information about Canada’s
forests and the forest sector.
British Columbia Market Outreach
Network
1200-1130 Pender Street West
Vancouver BC V6E 4A4
Phone: (604) 685-7507/1-866-992-2266
Fax: (604) 685-5373
Internet site: www.bcforestinformation.com
Canadian Federation of Woodlot
Owners
180 St. John Street
Fredericton NB E3B 4A9
Phone: (506) 459-2990
Fax: (506) 459-3515
Canadian Forestry Association
203-185 Somerset Street West
Ottawa ON K2P 0J2
Phone: (613) 232-1815
Fax: (613) 232-4210
Internet site: www.canadianforestry.com
Canadian Institute of Forestry
606-151 Slater Street
Ottawa ON K1P 5H3
Phone: (613) 234-2242
Fax: (613) 234-6181
Internet site: www.cif-ifc.org
Canadian Model Forest Network
Secretariat
Sir William Logan Building, 7th floor
580 Booth Street
Ottawa ON K1A 0E4
Phone: (613) 992-5874
Fax: (613) 992-5390
Internet site: www.modelforest.net
92
Canadian Wildlife Federation
350 Michael Cowpland Drive
Kanata ON K2M 2W1
Phone: (613) 599-9594/1-800-563-WILD
Fax: (613) 599-4428
Internet site: www.cwf-fcf.org
Council of Forest Industries
1200-Two Bentall Centre
555 Burrard Street
PO Box 276
Vancouver BC V7X 1S7
Phone: (604) 684-0211
Fax: (604) 687-4930
Internet site: www.cofi.org
Government of Alberta
Ministry of Sustainable Resource Development [Public Lands and Forests Division]
Petroleum Plaza South Tower
9915-108 Street
Edmonton AB T5K 2G8
Phone: (780) 415-1396
Fax: (780) 422-6068
Internet site: www3.gov.ab.ca/srd
Ducks Unlimited Canada
1030 Winnipeg Street
PO Box 4465
Regina SK S4P 3W7
Phone: (306) 569-0424
Fax: (306) 565-3699
Internet site: www.ducks.ca
Government of British Columbia
Ministry of Forests [Forest Practices
Branch]
727 Fisgard Street, 9 th floor
PO Box 9513 Stn. Prov. Govt.
Victoria BC V8W 9C2
Phone: (250) 387-1946
Fax: (250) 387-1467
Internet site: www.gov.bc.ca/for
Forest Engineering Research
Institute of Canada (FERIC)
580, boulevard St-Jean
Pointe-Claire QC H9R 3J9
Phone: (514) 694-1140
Fax: (514) 694-4351
Internet site: www.feric.ca
Forest Products Association
of Canada
410-99 Bank Street
Ottawa ON K1P 6B9
Phone: (613) 563-1441
Fax: (613) 563-4720
Internet site: www.fpac.ca
Forintek Canada Corp.
2665 East Mall
Vancouver BC V6T 1W5
Phone: (604) 224-3221
Fax: (604) 222-5690
Internet site: www.forintek.ca
Gouvernement du Québec
Ministère des Ressources naturelles, de la
Faune et des Parcs [Secteur des forêts]
880, chemin Ste-Foy, 10e étage
Québec QC G1S 4X4
Phone: (418) 627-8652
Fax: (418) 646-4335
Internet site: www.mrn.gouv.qc.ca
Government of Canada
[Canadian Forest Service]
580 Booth Street
Ottawa ON K1A 0E4
Phone: (613) 947-7341
Fax: (613) 947-9033
Internet site: www.nrcan.gc.ca/cfs-scf
Government of Manitoba
Department of Conservation
[Forestry Branch]
200 Saulteaux Crescent
PO Box 70
Winnipeg MB R3J 3W3
Phone: (204) 945-7989
Fax: (204) 948-2671
Internet site: www.gov.mb.ca/
conservation/forestry
Government of New Brunswick
Department of Natural Resources
[Forest Management Branch]
Hugh John Flemming Forestry Centre
1350 Regent Street
PO Box 6000
Fredericton NB E3B 5H1
Phone: (506) 453-2516
Fax: (506) 453-6689
Internet site: www.gnb.ca
Government of Newfoundland
and Labrador
Department of Natural Resources [Forest
Resources Branch]
Natural Resources Building, 5th floor
50 Elizabeth Avenue
PO Box 8700
St. John’s NL A1B 4J6
Phone: (709) 729-2704
Fax: (709) 729-3374
Internet site: www.gov.nf.ca/forestry
Government of Nova Scotia
Department of Natural Resources
[Forestry Division]
Arlington Place
664 Prince Street
PO Box 68
Truro NS B2N 5B8
Phone: (902) 893-5671
Fax: (902) 893-6102
Internet site: www.gov.ns.ca/natr/forestry
Government of Nunavut
Department of Sustainable Development
PO Box 1000, Stn. 110
Iqaluit NU X0A 0H0
Phone: (867) 975-5925
Fax: (867) 975-5980
Internet site: www.gov.nu.ca/sd.htm
Government of Ontario
Ministry of Natural Resources
[Forests Division]
Roberta Bondar Place
400-70 Foster Drive
Sault Ste Marie ON P6A 6V5
Phone: (705) 945-6746
Fax: (705) 945-5977
Internet site: www.mnr.gov.on.ca
Government of Prince Edward Island
Department of Agriculture, Fisheries,
Aquaculture and Forestry [Forestry and
Land Resource Modeling]
Jones Building
11 Kent Street
PO Box 2000
Charlottetown PE C1A 7N8
Phone: (902) 368-4880
Fax: (902) 368-4857
Internet site: www.gov.pe.ca/af
Government of Saskatchewan
Department of Environment
3211 Albert Street
Regina SK S4S 5W6
Phone: (306) 787-2700
Fax: (306) 787-2947
Internet site: www.se.gov.sk.ca
Government of the Northwest
Territories
Department of Resources, Wildlife and
Economic Development
[Forest Management Division]
149 McDougal Road, 2nd floor
PO Box 7
Fort Smith NT X0E 0P0
Phone: (867) 872-7700
Fax: (867) 872-2077
Internet site: www.rwed.gov.nt.ca
Government of Yukon
Department of Energy, Mines and
Resources [Forest Management Branch]
Mile 918 Alaska Highway
PO Box 2703
Whitehorse YT Y1A 2C6
Phone: (867) 667-5466
Fax: (867) 667-8601
Internet site: www.emr.gov.yk.ca/forestry
International Model Forest Network
Secretariat
250 Albert Street, 13th floor
PO Box 8500
Ottawa ON K1G 3H9
Phone: (613) 236-6163 ext. 2521
Fax: (613) 234-7457
E-mail:[email protected]
Internet site: www.idrc.ca/imfn
Maritime Lumber Bureau
PO Box 459
Amherst NS B4H 4A1
Phone: (902) 667-3889
Fax: (902) 667-0401
Internet site: www.mlb.ca
National Aboriginal Forestry
Association
875 Bank Street
Ottawa ON K1S 3W4
Phone: (613) 233-5563
Fax: (613) 233-4329
Internet site: www.nafaforestry.org
National Forest Strategy Coalition
Secretariat
580 Booth Street
Ottawa ON K1A 0E4
Phone: (613) 947-9087
Fax: (613) 947-9033
Internet site: nfsc.forest.ca
National Round Table on the
Environment and the Economy
200-344 Slater Street
Ottawa ON K1R 7Y3
Phone: (613) 992-7189
Fax: (613) 992-7385
Internet site: www.nrtee-trnee.ca
Pulp and Paper Research Institute
of Canada (Paprican)
570, boulevard St-Jean
Pointe-Claire QC H9R 3J9
Phone: (514) 630-4100
Fax: (514) 630-4134
Internet site: www.paprican.ca
Quebec Forest Industry Council
1175, avenue Lavigerie, bureau 200
Sainte-Foy QC G1V 4P1
Phone: (418) 657-7916
Fax: (418) 657-7971
Internet site: www.cifq.qc.ca
Sustainable Forest Management
Network
G208 Biological Sciences Building
University of Alberta
Edmonton AB T6G 2E9
Phone: (780) 492-6659
Fax: (780) 492-8160
Internet site: sfm-1.biology.ualberta.ca
Tree Canada Foundation
1550-220 Laurier Avenue West
Ottawa ON K1P 5Z9
Phone: (613) 567-5545
Fax: (613) 567-5270
Internet site: www.treecanada.ca
Wildlife Habitat Canada
310-1750 Courtwood Crescent
Ottawa ON K2C 2B5
Phone: (613) 722-2090
Fax: (613) 722-3318
Internet site: www.whc.org
93

The State of Canada`s Forests 2003-2004

Transcription

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